Voters, Please Get Informed!

In a recent article written by Ann Patchett in the New York Times titled Voting In the Rain, she highlights how many Americans vote (or at least how she votes), which seems to be guided by little to no information. She recalls being a child and looking forward to voting, knowing that it would be her own personal political secret. Her parents assured her that no one would ever ask who she voted for or why she voted for them. But, as she points out, that is clearly not the way things work in this day and age. Voter preference is painted over everything in our lives, from our cars, our lawns, and even our person. Social media is flooded with friends and family's personal political preference, that it seems there is almost no hiding your political support. The author goes on to describe her community's affinity to plastering every piece of grass possible with signs supporting political candidates. She believes many Americans are convinced that undecided voters can easily be swayed by these signs, showing others that if it's important enough for someone to clutter up their property, it must be important, and therefore that candidate deserves a vote. Although the author seems to point out that this practice is silly and unreliable, she then goes on to state that she sometimes relies on these signs for less consequential elections in which she is less familiar with the candidates in question. She declares that the barrage of candidate names for the primary elections of State Senate, State House, office of county clerk, and school board in her community were too overwhelming, and she simply decided not to vote and instead to wait for the midterm election in November (as "surely that would be enough"). She then goes on to state that she "tried not to think about the fact that I was giving up a privilege others had fought for." However, she then goes on to state that she was able to get politically charged enough to not sit on the couch for the primary election, and instead get up and vote (and to even walk there in the rain). But immediately followed up by that, she goes on to point out that she in fact used the very lawn signs she was degrading at the beginning of the article to help her decide how to vote...or at least got her thinking as to why one candidate has as much support as they have, and if she should be swayed by that support. She ends her story stating that her vote was made for the woman who shared her name with Thackeray's antihero in "Vanity Fair" and states "I believe that more important votes have been cast on less rationale than that." She even references asking her husband who she should vote for when they reach their polling place, in which he replies "Vote for yourself." In my opinion, this is a disturbing article. I don't think it empowers voters at all to think critically about who they are voting for and why, and instead supports a mindless checking of the boxes that I think many Americans have come to practice. I believe that every voter should take ample time before casting a ballot to research the policies of the candidates in question in order to make informed and well thought out votes. Although I don't believe this was the intent of the author, I believe she is telling America "It's OK to cheat. Just look at what your neighbor is doing."

Not sure where to start? Start with these tips from the League of Women Voters on Smart Voter: How to Judge a Candidate.