VOTE!

VOTE!

Last day for Early Voting; Election tomorrow

ATimes Editor Commentary If you didn’t read the headline, go back up and read it again. Now read it to someone. Now go!

This is it. You’ve got today and then tomorrow, and then let the chips fall where they may. And believe it or not, you have a voice in deciding how this election cycle shakes out. Yes, it’s easy to be cynical. I’ve heard it all before, I assure you.

The go-to favorite? “My vote doesn’t really count.”

I get it. There’s actually a logical paradox there.

While your individual vote is only one of hundreds (or thousands, or millions as the races expand from local to national), collectively each vote carries an incredible amount of weight. If “your” vote doesn’t count, and “your” vote doesn’t count, and “your” vote doesn’t count, well, then how does anyone’s vote count? It’s like the “Paradox of the Heap.” If you have a heap of rice, and you take one grain away, is it still a heap. What about another grain. And another.

At some point, you have to go, well, that’s not a heap anymore. But what if you add one more grain of rice back then? Each vote is a grain of rice. And the more people who vote, the closer we get to an actual snapshot of the true collective conscience of American society.

Yes, in every race, roughly half the people are going to be disappointed. But that’s how democracy works, and it’s important that not everyone is a like-minded drone. Debate sparks change and change sparks progress.

Here’s one I hear frequently: “The graveyard is full of soldiers that died so that you could have the right to vote.”

Man, how do you not vote after hearing that one, right? I have an uncle who was killed in Vietnam.

Now, I’m pretty sure he wasn’t really thinking about my voting rights while he was serving his country, but it’s true that without the sacrifice of thousands (millions?) of people, we wouldn’t live in a country with the right to vote (or the right to not vote, I guess). If guilt-tripping you is what it takes to get you off your butt and go vote, then that’s fine with me.

Another excuse: “(My candidate) is going to win/lose, whether I vote or not.”

Let’s just use the last presidential election as an example. Mitt Romney carried Arkansas by a double- digit margin, but Barack Obama carried Crittenden County by a doubledigit margin. Romney got all 6 of Arkansas’ Electoral Votes, but Obama easily won the national election.

So, if you voted Republican, your presidential candidate lost, but those Republican voters also voted in a bunch of downballot

state races, and guess

what? The Republicans won all of the major state offices. Not a few… all of them, including the governor’s seat. Now, what if all of those Republican voters had stayed home because they knew Obama was going to get re-elected?

You see, it’s not just about who’s going to be president. It’s not even about who you want to be president. If you vote in Crittenden County, you are going to be given an opportunity make a minimum of 10 different choices on your ballot this year, from President on down to City Council and four of seven remaining ballot issues. And while you may not like your options at the top of the ballot (roughly 40 percent of recently- polled voters found both Trump and Clinton at least “somewhat unappealing), you can vote for a third party candidate and help give them some traction moving forward. And you can vote for U.S. Senate, and for a handful of county and local offices, and for or against the legalization of marijuana and, believe me, those votes “count.” Every single one of them.

Look at the community around you. Do like the direction it’s going? If so, support the incumbents. If not, support their opponents. If you think not voting is helping the situation, you’re part of the problem. Projections are that we might be seeing record or near-record turnout in 2016. Be a part of that.

Our society is changing.

You can’t ignore it. You can’t move off to some other locale and escape it.

But you can play a part in shaping that change.

Vote!

By Ralph Hardin