Often you hear people complain that it's not worth voting, that because of the Electoral College, my vote won't make a difference. While it's true that your vote probably won't alter the way your state's electors vote—particularly if you live in a state that always goes for one party or the other—like Massachusetts, New York, Texas or Idaho—all votes still count for something. The Electoral College are the ones who officially make the decision in December, yes, but the voices of the 130,000,000 or so voters do count. After all, while a president can lose the popular vote and still win the presidency, it sure doesn't look good for that president if he gets into office that way.
Say we Obama supporters were to lose the Electoral College but win the popular vote. That would put a dent in McCain's claim on a "mandate." Remember that Bush went crazy in that very situation when he lost the popular vote but got the Electoral vote awarded to him by the Supreme Court, but it still affects popular opinion.
If there's an Electoral College tie then it's settled by a vote in the House of Representatives. They will probably settle it for Obama, since the Democrats control more state delegations in the House than the Republicans do, and that's probably not going to change with this year's elections. But if McCain wins the popular vote in that situation, it'd be a harder sell for the House to vote for Obama. And again, Obama would have the stigma of having gotten into office by a technicality in that case. Who wants that?
Of course, if we win both the popular vote and the Electoral vote, the greater our popular vote is, the better Obama looks. The fact is that while most Americans know the rules of the Electoral College, on some level it doesn't feel fair that the candidate who got the most votes doesn't necessarily get to be president. That's the rule for every other election in this country except for the presidential one, so there's a certain visceral resentment toward the notion that the number-two candidate can snag job number one.
You might not think it matters, because everyone you want to vote for is leading in the polls. You might think that it’s only worth it to turn up at the polls if it looks close. It’s a sin of pride to think that it’s not worth the effort only in the event that it all comes down to your vote alone to decide the election. We’re in this together, and our numbers—or the Republicans’ numbers—decide what we want to say. Whose numbers do you want to see count here?
In the end, we’re all citizens, and we have a duty to participate in the selection of our leaders. It’s a moral obligation. Voting is the principle that our country relies on. The more of us who vote, the more our leaders know that your part of the country matters, and the more you’ll consequently benefit. This applies to the presidential elections as well as to the elections for governors, senators and representatives; to the elections of mayors, city council members, judges and every single official who has a job to do in every single city, county, town and township. And don’t forget the next presidential primaries. Remember: your state counts more if your state has a history of heavy voter turnout in primaries. What you do in this election directly affects how much your state is worth in the next primary elections—thus giving you more of a say in who our next nominee will be!
I live in Massachusetts, which is safely Democratic in all the big elections, as well as in most of the smaller ones, as well. But if we didn’t get a significant number of people to the polls on Election Day, that wouldn’t be such a guarantee. In other words, we’re only a lock because we vote.
See you at the polls.