It’s simple: your vote matters
I’m an immigrant, so, relax, I can’t become president. But I can vote, and I will tomorrow, just as I have in almost every election since I was legally allowed to do so back in the Dark Ages.
Being an immigrant doesn’t make me any smarter than anyone else, but it does give me a certain perspective and appreciation for the whole voting thing, especially coming from a country where my parents and grandparents had very little voice in choosing their government.
Voting matters. I think it’s the fundamental responsibility of every citizen, and, yes, I know how politically unsophisticated this may all sound. But it’s what I believe. Voting is the starting point for everything else in a democracy, and specifically this republic. It allows me to be part of the game, to be a part of history. My vote — even among thousands and millions of others — does matter. It gives me a real voice in the political process and in choosing my government, even when I don’t vote for the winner.
In the end, polls don’t really matter, nor do all the speculation and commentary by even the smartest of the chattering class. That’s all guesswork; some of it’s really good guesswork, but still guesswork. The only thing that matters is what happens on election day.
It’s like a football game. Think of the polls as the betting line, which tells you who bettors think will win. The pregame shows are full of commentary and predictions of which team will dominate. But it’s all air, really. What matters is what happens when the players take the field. On any given Sunday, the Packers should beat the Bears, no question (and I hope they always do). But, as we know, on any given Sunday, the line can be wrong and the Bears can smack the Packers in the mouth.
The same with polls, which have shown themselves to be easily as fallible, and sometimes more so, than Vegas’ line. Tom Dewey should have beaten Harry Truman, the polls famously said. Except he didn’t. In 2012, the final Gallup poll had Mitt Romney with a slight edge over Barack Obama.
More recently, as a New York Times piece in January noted, pollsters were wrong on November’s Kentucky governor’s race, and failed to anticipate the Republican landslide in the 2014 midterm elections. They have missed predictions in elections in Israel and Britain.
And what happens when the people who were polled don’t go to the polls because they don’t think their votes matter?
So pay attention to the polls and the commentary but vote anyway because it does matter.
Voters in the 1968 New Hampshire primary gave “Clean Gene” McCarthy enough votes to help unseat Lyndon Johnson, the dominant political figure of his time. That fall, Richard Nixon won the general election by the slimmest of margins over Hubert Humphrey. Earlier, John Kennedy barely beat Nixon (and some say he didn’t really) in the 1960 election. In 2000, Al Gore won the popular vote over George Bush but — thanks to the Supreme Court and some hanging chads in Florida — it was Bush who was inaugurated in January 2001.
And, to take one local example, in the 2002 Oconomowoc mayoral race, Gary Kohlenberg upset former mayor J. Thomas Foti, a three-term incumbent. It was Kohlenberg’s first run for public office and his name wasn’t even on the ballot. He was a write-in candidate.
In each of those cases, a relative handful of votes made the difference that mattered.
The same could happen Tuesday. It could happen in the presidential primary races, the state Supreme Court race and a slew of local races, such as Milwaukee mayor and Milwaukee county executive. I guarantee that your vote matters.
So educate yourself on the candidates, figure out who you think will do the best job and then grab your voter ID and join me at the polls. Be a part of history.