Voting

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Today is the first Tuesday in February in Illinois, which makes it Primary Election Day. Our state has thus started the round of Primary Elections in 2010. Woo Illinois!

Gretch and I both voted today. It is always amusing to talk to someone after you have voted. Some of the candidates we both voted for (mostly because I have been telling everyone to vote for Bill Brady for the Republican Governor nomination). Some of them we did not. There are times when that happens that I wonder if voting is an exercise in futility, after all.

Because, when you think about it, if I vote for Candidate A and my wife votes for Candidate B, and her dad votes for Candidate C, while her mom votes for Candidate D, then, really, what's the point?

The point is that, in our small ways, we are making our voices heard. We are saying that not one candidate truly stood out as the one we all agreed upon. This further indicates that each candidate had something to offer that piqued our interests enough to vote for him or her, and that the other candidates did not. And that this was true for all of them.

I think that, in some ways, I like the Primary Elections even more than the General Elections. Even though the United States pays lip-service to the concept of the "third-party", we all know that we are a two-party nation. So When 2,000,001 people vote, and the vote goes 999,999 votes for Candidate A and 1,000,002 votes for Candidate B, then, really, We are looking at no votes for A and 3 votes for B. But not really. Really, it means that the people voting were so evenly split that either candidate would perform equally well. And this is generally what happens. As my rather jaded father-in-law would say, although perhaps not in these words, they all suck equally.

However, the Primary Election allows for a wider selection of candidates, and this is how we see what the voting public really thinks. Each vote represents a viewpoint on a particular issue. I wonder what would happen if we did away with our current electoral system and adopted a broader system, like other nations have, where members of the legislature are forced to form a coalition to accomplish anything. I would like to think that we would have more effective change.

But we still have a two-party system, and if you live in Illinois, you should have voted. If you haven't, you have, as of the writing of this post, approximately three hours to do so. So go vote. Make your voice heard! And, if you are voting on the Republican ballot, vote for Bill Brady!

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