Today we are presented with 6 candidates for President to choose from. Shall we vote Green and pretend that the environment is the only relevant issue? Or should we vote for a Libertarian in Name only? Barring that perhaps the constitutional party deserves our consideration (unless of course trade with China actually matters to you). Then of course we have Nader, running independent per usual, and our two major party candidates; one a strong socialist, the other a fascist. So as you head to the polls today, remember that voting for President is not mandatory. Your refusal to vote is itself a vote.
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James Thoburn (twitter: @you_count) is the founder of Backyard Politics. Comment here or @reply you_count on twitter to join the conversation.
Blessedly, I didn’t have to confront the “to vote or not to vote” question this year, but I’m not entirely sure that choosing not to excercise your right is equivalent to exercising it in this instance. In the short term, who wins, it is absolutely the same, but in the long term, when our representatives want to see which voting demographics have the most electoral power, abstinence could come back to bite us.