Nathaniel Hoover | Guy Whose Website You're Viewing
  • Home
  • Blog
  • Series Opinions
    • Mega Man >
      • Mega Man Classic >
        • Mega Man 1-6
        • Mega Man 7-11
        • Mega Man Game Boy Games
        • Mega Man Spinoffs
        • Mega Man Remakes
        • Mega Man Sports & Arcade Games
      • Mega Man Sequel Series >
        • Mega Man X1-5
        • Mega Man X6-8 + Command Mission
        • Mega Man X Portable Games
        • Mega Man Zero Series
        • Mega Man ZX Series
        • Mega Man Legends Series
      • Mega Man Spinoff Series >
        • Mega Man Battle Network 1-3 + Network Transmission
        • Mega Man Battle Network 4-6 + Battle Chip Challenge
        • Mega Man Star Force Series
    • Star Trek >
      • Star Trek TV Series >
        • The Original Series (TOS)
        • The Animated Series (TAS)
        • The Next Generation (TNG)
        • Deep Space Nine (DS9)
        • Voyager (VOY)
        • Enterprise (ENT)
      • TOS Films >
        • Star Trek: The Motion Picture
        • Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan
        • Star Trek III: The Search for Spock
        • Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home
        • Star Trek V: The Final Frontier
        • Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country
      • TNG Films >
        • Star Trek: Generations
        • Star Trek: First Contact
        • Star Trek: Insurrection
        • Star Trek: Nemesis
      • Ones That Don't Count >
        • Star Trek (2009)
        • Star Trek Into Darkness
        • Star Trek Beyond
        • Discovery
        • Picard
  • Games
    • Mega Man Fangame Tracker
    • OH JOES! (A Proto Man Adventure)
  • Presentations
  • Writing Samples

The Value of a Vote

11/7/2013

4 Comments

 
I don't generally follow politics, but I do get out to vote whenever possible. "Why bother?" you ask. "It's not like your vote makes a difference." No, you're right—the chances that my single vote means anything other than bupkis are slim to none. That's because I don't choose our elected officials. We do. I forfeit my right to complain about my country's government if I don't vote, just like I forfeit the right to complain about not winning the lottery if I don't buy a ticket. The odds that it'll make any difference are against me, but the point isn't to beat the odds—if you do, that's only a bonus. The point is to play the game.

My wife and I go out to vote together. We don't always vote alike—I'm sure our votes have effectively canceled each other out on occasion—but on the way over to our polling place, we discuss the people we are (and are definitely not) voting for. Sometimes, one of us sways the other to change his or her vote. More often, our choices remain the same, but we have a worthwhile conversation that helps us to better understand the ups and downs of these candidates as well as each other's thought processes. Not everyone can have a civil discussion of the subject, but my wife and I give enough consideration to the candidates we support to explain where we're coming from before any fur starts flying. We already understand each other's personal viewpoints on "the issues"; choosing a candidate is mostly a matter of weighing the personal and professional choices and identities of the individuals on the ballot and deciding which person would best represent us.

Why doesn't my individual vote matter? Because too much of the country assumes there are only two choices, and certain states act like there's only one. If I'm not siding with the obvious winner or tipping the balance to the left or right when it's too close to call, I'm throwing away my vote. But I throw away the democratic process in favor of an endless tug-of-war when I let the rest of the country essentially flip a coin to decide who my leaders will be. How much do I really care about myself or this country if I don't cast my lot with whomever truly represents my best interests? How much do the nation's problems really matter to me if I've got a half-dozen people on the ballot who have solutions, and I only consider listening to one or two of them? Forget about the piddly little drop in the bucket that is my single vote; my integrity, patriotism, and freethinking individualism are at stake here!

I take responsibility for my votes. I sit down to research all the candidates before an election. All the candidates—Republican, Democrat, Green, Libertarian, Independent; even the ones with ridiculous names like the Go To Bed Or Else Your Mother Will Run For President To Make It Against The Law To Stay Up Late party. It doesn't matter if I think I won't like what a candidate has to say. Political affiliation is only a label, and you can't trust a label to tell you what an individual is like.

The trouble is, some candidates don't make it easy for people who care about more than their party affiliation to find out anything about them. If I miss all your pep rallies and debates and newspaper coverage, where can I turn for information about you? The Internet. If you are truly serious about getting elected, the least you can do is get your tech-savvy nephew to spend five minutes throwing together a free website for your campaign. Facebook or Twitter? Even better. Project Vote Smart? Fab. I cannot tell you how many candidates I've given up on because I couldn't find anything about them, from every party, for President all the way down to Board of Education.

At the time I'm writing this, doing a search for my name on Google yields this website as the first result, my Twitter account right after that, a YouTube tribute video one of my fans made for me, the wrong Nathaniel Hoover's Facebook page, my article contribution page for GameCola, my LinkedIn profile, some other dude's LinkedIn profile, Exfanding Your Horizons, and a news article about my demise in Jacksonville, FL last year. All of this is on the first page of search results, and that's without throwing on any additional terms to narrow down which Nathaniel Hoover we're talking about.

Meanwhile, I'm trolling the archives of a local newspaper for even a passing mention of this person who's on the ballot. If you don't recognize the value of a basic Internet presence, then it makes me wonder how in-touch with our tech-driven society you really are. If you see the value but can't be bothered to establish a basic Internet presence, then I wonder how much you really care about getting elected. If you see the value but don't know how to establish a basic Internet presence, then I wonder how suitable you are to lead if you give up on anything you can't do by yourself. I'm not even asking for a whiz-bang multimedia extravaganza; a 1997 GeoCities page with your picture and a list of three things you care about would be fine!

In the end, I vote for the person I feel is best qualified for the job, regardless of whom the media and my own political party are putting in the spotlight. If that's a waste of a vote, then it's a waste of a vote. But I'd rather waste my vote trying to do right by myself and my country than sit at home and wait for an election that's worth voting in.
4 Comments
Threxx
11/11/2013 09:54:48 am

A vote is never wasted. Here in the NYC Mayoral Race, the voter turnout was less than 25%. That's shameful. It's your civic duty to be informed and vote.

Reply
Nathaniel
11/11/2013 01:29:04 pm

That's terrible. I wonder, really, what it is that's responsible for such low turnout rates recently. Maybe they've always been low, but I feel like I've been hearing more about how nobody is showing up at the polls nowadays. Apathy? Disillusionment? No free candy at the door? Baffling.

Reply
SwordHMX
11/24/2013 04:10:26 am

Hey, that right to complain analogy was really well done. That's a nice way to sum up what I have been saying for a long time.

Nathaniel link
6/3/2014 05:48:03 am

Thanks!


Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    RSS Feed

    See what my wife's up to!
    Things I Put In My Husband's Lunch

    Archives

    April 2022
    November 2021
    May 2021
    March 2021
    January 2021
    August 2020
    July 2020
    September 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    September 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    December 2017
    October 2017
    January 2017
    November 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013

    Categories

    All
    Anime
    Art
    Books
    Collecting And Collectables
    Conventions And Events
    Exfanding Your Horizons
    Fantasy
    Food
    Gamecola
    Holidays
    Internet
    MaGMML
    Marriage
    Mega Man
    Movies
    Music
    News
    OH JOES!
    Opinion
    Philosophy
    Politics
    Religion
    Retrospective
    Sci Fi
    Social Media
    Star Trek
    Star Wars
    Stories
    Television
    Video Games
    Videos
    Writing

    Creative Commons License
    This work by Nathaniel Hoover is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 3.0 Unported License.
Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.