Abstaining A through Z San Francisco, CA 10/30/99

It’s like a ticker-tape parade went down Irving Street this fine Saturday afternoon, with no clean-up crew to remove the wreckage of the glorious campaign. Each turn of my doorknob seems to dispense a coupon with suggestions of who to write in, yes or no, A and B, I and J. Every telephone pole in the city is garnished eye-high up with messages of safer streets and clever little rhymes that stick in your mind like lipstick to a soda straw.

Am I to complain about the fabulous mechanism of democracy, in this most active-minded city? And just because a few extra stickers will linger on car bumpers, declaring the political direction of their drivers for years to come? In a word, Yes.

Will most people make an informed decision about the candidates? No, they won’t. Is it not true that most people will be influenced by the pre-election spewage of propaganda on the streets, on tv, in the news? Of course they will, otherwise why would the candidates spend all that money spewing? Most people will fill their ballots not according to what they believe, what they’ve read or debated at dinner parties, but rather they will check off, or write in, the name that has been best advertised, the one everyone’s going with. Everyone wants to have gone with a winner.

What is left does not matter, since a minority does not win an election. But let’s consider the thinking, reading, carefully selecting citizens anyway. Well, what have you read? Who wrote it? Do you know the candidates personally? Do you know enough about the actual job to feel qualified to say who’s best for it? Seems like an awfully heavy burden, but that is the duty which comes with citizenship in this great nation. Have you borne your burden properly? And if not, will you vote anyway?

This year I am going to fully exercise my right as an American citizen and denizen of this principality, not to vote. Not to vote, only in the most literal sense that is, because even not voting is voting. I’m voting, for nobody. I’m writing in: nothing.

I encourage you to do, or in this case, not do one simple thing. For the good of us all, if you don’t know the person you’re voting for, just leave the ballot blank. You’ll be casting a vote for less propaganda and more substance, and you’ll be lending more weight to those informed voters who have invested in making a careful choice.