by Elizabeth M Young

Created on: October 22, 2010   Last Updated: November 20, 2010

Voting can mean so many different things to different people that it is understandable that a lot of eligible voters stay at the "no" end of the decision spectrum. It may be because a person was brought up to resent voting as a process that is meaningless. It may be that a person developed a mindset or political viewpoint that voting is meaningless. Others may have been convinced or controlled by spouses or significant persons in their life to not vote. Still more may simply consider the process and issues to be too confusing.

Those who truly believe that voting is a meaningless process have taken many routes to belief systems that are powerful enough to devalue one of the most important and fundamental rights that they will ever have in life. There are those who believe that, since the electoral college does the actual voting in federal elections, that the system is somehow fixed; that citizens are never truly affecting anything by voting.

Others have been subjected to threats, tricks or mistreatment that convinced them that voting is a hazard to their safety or lives. There are still plenty of communities where the old "Jim Crow" mentalities and behaviors exist.

When deliberate roadblocks are put up, such as not setting up enough polling places in a community or being turned away by law enforcement should actually be cause for criminal investigations. While these kinds of tricks are rarely prosecuted, they can cause many voters to not try again.

The real conspiracy buffs believe that  "Big Brother" will someday access and use our past political preferences to incarcerate, brutalize or oppress us. This is a scary proposition that is not a complete fantasy, since so much of voting is automated.  It is easy for anyone to get to a point where they take such ideas seriously.

One problem for people who need to maintain their privacy comes from registering to vote. When addresses, phone numbers and other information are made public for anyone to see, then serious problems will come up for abuse and stalking victims and others who have legitimate reasons for maintaining their privacy. 

People who move or who have other reasons for losing their registration status can find out too late that they needed to re-register. Other hiccups and problems with systems can disenfranchise people before they can take action. Some people are unaware of the complexities of being a convicted criminal and do not know whether they have regained their rights to vote. Language and social barriers might prevent naturalized citizens from getting engaged in the voting process.

Finally, midterm and lesser elections are notorious for low voter turnouts. Even dedicated voters might take a vacation from voting during midterm elections. But with absentee balloting, more are able to complete their ballots and get them in the mail.

While most people value, treasure and honor the right to vote, many have their own reasons for not voting and not all of those reasons are arguable. Hopefully, there will be no return to the voting corruption and problems of the past, but the overall system and right will never be more valuable than it is now.

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