Ok, so yesterday was the last day to register to vote in Ohio so I was out there on the streets trying to scrounge up the last few voters who have yet to register. We were supposed to stick to 1 location so they had me posted all day outside a Family Dollar store in Lakewood. Overall, people were pretty nice and I ended up registering 9 voters, which was great, but once again, (Walmart Redux) I was shocked by the number of people who said that they did NOT vote. Even more surprising, this was coming from a cross section of people- young, old, male, female, black, white. Their responses were so ridiculous I started writing them down. Here are a few of highlights:
-You know what they say? Don't vote. It only encourages them.
-Never voted, never will! It's all politics, they're going to put whoever they want in there.
-I voted 3 times against Bush and look what happened, so I don't vote anymore.
-No, I don't want to. I'm not gonna be a part of it.
These are people who are watching their wallets and obviously care about the economy, but they feel alienated from their government. Coming from a place of privilege, it's easy for me to be optimistic and say, this presidential election is incredibly important and it WILL have an effect on individual's lives, but part of me understands why people feel turned off from politics. This is the part that is totally terrified that Sarah Palin is enticing people with her winks and "middle class values" and "I'm gonna talk straight to the American people."
I don't really know how to appeal to the non voters at Family Dollar. The ones I encountered seemed so set in their ways, I doubted anything I could say would influence them. It's clearly a sign of a much larger and more complex issue in our country of people not voting. I'm interested in what people have to say about this. Why do you vote?
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