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Saturday, May 10, 2014

Save time and money by not voting


In the K-12 school system and in college, teachers and professors would talk about how important voting is.

It never made much sense to me.

The teachers would say it is a patriotic duty to vote, every vote matters, and some elections came down to one vote.

This just seemed like a load of to me. I get the impression they try to encourage as many people as possible to vote for democrats.


The president of the United States gets elected by winning the majority of the electoral votes, not the popular vote. The election many teachers refer to is the US presidential election of 1876. Rutheford Hayes vs Samuel Tilden. Rutherford won 185 electoral votes while Samuel won 184 electoral votes.

In this election, Rutherford won 4,034,311 popular votes while Samuel won 4,288,546 popular votes.

This would not be the last time in history this happened. I think most people still remember the presidential election of 2000. Bush vs Gore. Bush won 271 electoral votes while Gore won 266 electoral votes.  Al Gore won 500,000 more popular votes than Bush did.

With this evidence, voting seems somewhat irrational.

Most states tend to vote the same way, either democrat or republican. This is why swing states are the most important states to win in an election.

The best example of this uselessness I can give is the most recent election of 2012.

After talking to an old friend, she said she voted for Obama.

Living in Georgia, I came to the conclusion that everyone in Georgia who voted in the election completely wasted his or her time.

Georgia voted for Mitt Romney. If you voted for Obama, your time was wasted because the electoral votes for Georgia went to Mitt Romney. If you voted for Romney, your time was wasted because Mitt Romney lost the election.

It is difficult for me to believe that people think their vote actually matters.

If I had voted in the last election, either Obama or Romney would have become president.
If I hadn't voted in the last election, either Obama or Romney would have become president.
Either way, there will be a president.

By not voting, you save your gas and you save the time not waiting in line.

Maybe if it was possible to vote from the internet, I could feel a little better about it.

At least a man would not have to drive or wait in line.

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