by Bruno Somerset

Created on: February 19, 2008   Last Updated: March 19, 2008

This year's race for the Democratic and Republican nominations for President has been the closest we've seen in a generation. Especially on the Democratic side, having several good candidates has brought people to the primaries and caucuses in record numbers, which is good not only for the two parties but for America as well. But it is critical that when the dust settles and the nominees are officially chosen that we not revert to what has happened in the past, namely low voter turnout in the November general election.

There is some debate about whether voter turnout is in fact declining, but that very question is misleading. Although voters as a percentage of the voting age population increased in both the 2000 and 2004 Presidential elections, the percentage is still just over half of those eligible. The last time the percentage surpassed 60% was 1968, exactly forty years ago. For the last four decades forty percent of eligible Americans have voluntarily surrendered their right to have a voice in who runs our country.

To put this in another context, in the hotly disputed 2000 election George W. Bush was elected president, even though only about 25% of eligible voters cast a ballot for him. That number rose only slightly in 2004. Numbers in off-year elections, when one-third of senators and every member of congress are up for election are even lower, averaging in the mid 30% range for decades until 2006, when 43% voted.

In spite of the higher turnout so far for the primaries, what I am hearing far too often from friends and colleagues is that who they vote for in November won't really matter simply because anyone will be an improvement over George W. Bush. This sentiment cuts across party, economic, and racial lines and while probably true, it ignores a key fact: we're not just voting for the next president.

While the race for president obviously commands the lion's share of the press coverage, there are a lot more names on the November ballot than simply the people running for president. Also up for election, or re-election, are our U.S. Representatives, state and local officials, as well as numerous initiatives that affect our lives much more than who resides in the White House. We should be paying as much attention to those races as we do to the presidential contest, and they are why we should vote even if we don't care who becomes president.

What makes this lack of voter participation so troubling is that all over the world people line up to vote even though there is the risk that they could be killed by extremist bullets or suicide bombers for doing so. This is certainly a fact in Iraq and Afghanistan, where our troops are risking their lives in order to bring freedom to those countries, including the freedom to vote. Yet we take that same freedom for granted.

Do we face bombs or bullets in order to exercise our right to vote? No. In fact, we have more opportunity to cast our ballots than ever before. We have absentee balloting and early voting (if you live in Texas, for example, early voting for the March 4th primary starts today). We love convenience, and our officials have made voting as convenient as possible, so as to not interfere with important things like American Idol. Sadly, unless we change our past behavior many more people will vote for the next American Idol winner than will vote for the next leader of the free world. That's certainly not what the Founding Fathers intended.

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