The Age of Man

The scourge of perpetually undecided voters: an election story 7 January 2010

On election day 2004, I drove to the polling precinct the sweetest old lady, who was so physically fragile that it took us 45 minutes to move her from her living room and down a single step to her carport. Any movement caused her obvious pain, but she rejected countless opportunities to give up and stay in the relative comfort of her house. I’ve never met anyone so fiercely insistent on voting.

The precinct offered curbside voting for people with disabilities, so I grabbed an election clerk who brought her a ballot. The clerk walked away and I tried to do the same, but she asked me to come close to her. “I don’t see so well and my hands are too shaky to write. Would you please read me the ballot and mark my choices?” I obliged, though I was determined to be completely even-handed.

“The first office on the ballot is President of the United States. The candidates listed are George W. Bush and John Kerry. Who would you like to vote for?”

She looked up after a moment, and in a soft voice she said, “I don’t think I know either one of them.”

I could hardly believe it, but I explained that Mr. Bush was a Republican and the current President, and that Mr. Kerry was a Democrat and the challenger. With this information and some time for blank staring, she guessed at her preference, the substance of which really isn’t important here. We continued in this manner all the way down the ballot. She didn’t know a single candidate, and she refused to vote in nonpartisan or uncontested races. Call me an elitist, but it kills me to think that her vote counted just the same as mine.

I feel the same way towards the subset of Independents that can’t decide which side they prefer, or who reflexively insist on divided government.

Anyone paying a little attention to current events ought to have more than enough information to make a voting decision, at least for the important offices. Of course current events will make us feel in turn hopeful, disappointed, spiteful, empowered, and disgusted; people may change their voting preferences accordingly. Independents–along with all partisans–are right to recognize that no candidate or party can embody all of any one voter’s policy preferences. But when the differences between the parties are as clear as they are today, having no opinion is a form of dishonesty. In a democratic society, when serious candidates concentrate so much persuasive effort on the tiny margin of undecided voters, objectively it is comedy.