Editor,
I am tired of hearing and reading about how I should vote.
The last few weeks have been full of people talking about how I need to vote, and that it’s my responsibility. Bill Clinton is running off about how if I don’t vote, I can’t complain about the results.
Well. I disagree.
In fact, I think my complaints are valid grounds for not voting. I’m not debating that my vote can influence elections: The three million extra votes from my age group in 2008 undoubtedly affected the election. My complaint is voting choices.
The fact is that you only get two voting choices in America: Republican or Democrat. Period. Voting for a third-party candidate accomplishes nothing but a self-gratified form of social protest (which is sometimes the best option there is), and I do not ascribe to the argument that third-party voters ever affect elections, except in 1992 with Ross Perot.
The truth is that you can only expect one of two parties to ever represent you in government. What this has created in our society is a division along political lines, across which there exists no compromise.
I, for instance, am an independent who supports socialized forms of welfare and health care and oppose foreign military
involvement, while simultaneously opposing abortion and increases in government spending.
As a political science student, I know that none of those views fundamentally oppose each other and many countries successfully integrate them. However, in any American election, I must choose which value to sacrifice for another. I am repeatedly told to vote, but which candidate do I vote for when there is no viable candidate or party that truly represents my interests and me?
Kyle Farris
UNM student
