These days one often hears that, unless you live in a "battleground" state, your vote doesn't really count. For example, Lewis Lapham in the November issue of Harper's, writes
If I lived in Cleveland or Detroit, my vote in the November presidential election might count for something in the eventual result; because I live in New York, it will count for nothing, as pointless as would be my vote for the next president of Uzbekistan or France.
Putting aside Lapham's central argument, which is that the electoral college should be eliminated (I agree), this statement is demonstrably false. Here's why.
The most obvious reason why is that, while your vote may not be directly counted towards determining who is elected President, it does count
in your state. My vote in New York will be just as important in giving Kerry New York's electoral votes as anyone else's. And if I, and enough other people, fail to cast our Kerry votes based on Lapham's logic, then Bush could theoretically win New York. What prevents this from happening is the understanding on the part of the electorate that in some small way, our votes
do count.
Put another way, if we all applied Lapham's logic to our voting behavior, then solid "red" and "blue" states wouldn't require elections at all (because nobody would show up).
But here's the important point. Although the nationwide popular vote does not determine the presidency, it does confer legitimacy upon the winner when it's result matches that of the electoral college. And this year, perhaps more than any before, we need to not only send John Kerry to the White House, but do so with a solid mandate and the legitimacy of a popular vote win.
Unfortunately, there is a lot to suggest that in '04 Kerry might win the electoral college and lose the popular vote, as Bush did in '00. For example, currently electoral-vote.com shows Kerry winning 271 electoral votes, but if you apply the state-by-state polling data to the state-by-state turnout from 2000, you get Kerry winning 47,281,131 votes and Bush winning 48,151,468 votes. It doesn't take much of an imagination to picture the uproar, the indignation, and the outright hostility John Kerry would face from Republicans if election day results mirror these.
We must give John Kerry the popular vote, and those of us in "safe" states have as much of a role in doing so as those in "battleground" states. So no matter where you live, go vote, get your friends and family to vote (and vote Kerry)
P.S. - I've also heard people use the "my vote doesn't count" logic to justify voting for Ralph Nader in a "safe" state. Remember, a vote for Nader is not a vote for Kerry and does nothing to strengthen his mandate when he takes office
P.P.S. - Let's also not forget that there are plenty of important congressional races in "safe" states that need your vote too