Exercise your Civic Duty

Tuesday, September 14, 2010 is Election Day in Wisconsin and your vote is important.

Many people complain about their elected officials, but when you ask, you find out they didn’t even bother to vote. If you won’t even take time to vote you have no right to complain.

I was curious about the voting behavior of Wisconsin residents so I visited the Wisconsin Governmental Accountability Board website and found some interesting statistics. Care to guess what percent of the eligible population in Wisconsin voted in the last September primary race?

In Sept, 2008, only 8.9% of the eligible voters bothered to vote in the primary. That is the lowest voter turnout in a September primary since they began tracking this in 1948. Over 81% of the eligible voters in the State didn’t think it was important enough for them to take time and cast a vote. No wonder we get the kind of representation we do.

The best turnout for a Sept. primary was in 1952 with 38.9% of population voting. Normally, the Sept. election has less than 25% of the eligible voters participating. People in Iraq were willing to risk being shot to participate in the election process. Where is that same passion here?

The numbers are a bit better when you look at the general election, especially when there is a Presidential race, but still 30-40% don’t bother to vote.

Tomorrow expectations are for a strong turnout but that equates to only 28% of the eligible population bothering to cast a vote. The stakes could not be higher with this election and I am just shocked and amazed that more people won’t be compelled to have their voice heard. Have we become that pathetic as an electorate or are we so disgusted with our leaders that we have decided no matter what we do it won’t make a difference?

But what is worse than not voting is casting an uninformed vote. Nothing irritates me more than someone who votes for someone because someone else told them to vote for that person. While you have the right to cast a vote, I believe you have a responsibility to take the time to understand the people on the ballot and their view on the issues.

Specific to Wisconsin, I have issues with the switching of parties for the primary so as to affect the results of the general election. A perfect case in point is the Governor’s race where it has been encouraged by many Democratic organizations that normally Democratic voters vote the Republican ballot instead of the Democratic ballot. The sole purpose of doing so it to vote for Mark Neumann, in hopes that he defeats Scott Walker.

Other states require you to register a Democrat or Republican and then you can only vote the ballot for the party to which you are registered. While it is nice that Wisconsin allows an open primary, it is games like these that undermine the reason why the primaries are open.

When you have such low turnouts in the primaries, tactics like those being proposed by the Democrats might influence the election. While there is nothing illegal about what the Democrats are proposing, it is unfortunate that they need to rely on such slimy tactics.

Let’s hope that Republicans have a chance to determine which candidate they want to place on the ballot for the general election and it is not determined by desperados who think the only way the can win is to hijack the system.

No mater what your political persuasion, please review the candidates on the ballot and make an informed choice on Tuesday.