It's election season (in some countries).
VOTE!
That is all.
Just kidding. I mean, I'm kidding about the "that is all" part. I'm not at all kidding about the voting part! I 100% encourage you to vote, if you live in a democratic nation and you have both the right and the ability (i.e., you have not been disenfranchised de jure or de facto).
Now, to be clear, I will NOT judge you for not voting if you have the ability but don't, for whatever reason.
I confess that this is not because I am particularly generous of spirit; it's because doing so would make me a huge hypocrite. In the past, I have chosen not to vote when I could have — mostly when it was a case of choosing between what felt like two equally bad choices and I would have felt guilty for having helped a terrible candidate get elected into office.
And, full disclosure, I am not voting in at least one election this season to which I am entitled to cast a ballot should I so choose — not because I am actively choosing not to, but merely because I dropped the ball: I didn't get my ass in gear in time to deal with all the complicated bureaucratic hoops that's required to vote where I am. I'm making no excuses here. That's 100% on me.
So, I hope you can see, I am casting no stones here. (Hello, have you seen my glass house??)
Having said all that, I still encourage you to vote (again, if you can) — and here's why:
Voting is vital to a functioning democracy1. And a democracy is a precious thing — hard won and easily lost2, more oft than not and if the citizenry is not careful.
Remember: In a democracy, those who govern do so only with the consent of the governed.
Thus, voting is a chance for us citizens to exercise our right to speak up for ourselves and for each other. It is not the only way, but it is an effective way3, for it is easily the most direct way to give or withdraw consent to those we collectively decide to govern us.
In short, voting is power.
I invite you — and myself! — not to forfeit our rightful power too easily, for to be powerless is to be in one of the most wretched states in the whole world.
So, I say once again:
VOTE!
-
Civics buffs out there, please forgive my imprecision here: I am using the term democracy to include a type of government that is technically and more accurately classified as a republic — basically because I am referring to any kind of governmental system in which the citizenry can vote, be that directly or indirectly. ↩
-
Yes, democracies have fallen — completely collapsed, in fact. I give you: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, Germany, Ghana, Greece, Guatemala, Nigeria, Pakistan, Peru, Thailand, Turkey, Uruguay, Venezuela. . . . At some point or another, all of these countries (and this is almost certainly an incomplete list, for my history is not that strong) had a democracy (of some flavour — some were more republic than democracy, but never mind that) and lost it somehow — some quickly, some slowly. If you're interested in how democracies die, I encourage you to read Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt's book — appropriately titled —, How Democracies Die. ↩
-
Assuming it's actually a fair election and not, say, a complete sham. After all, some dictatorships pretend to put on elections, but those are not true elections, for dictators never let their citizenry vote them out of office. ↩