Your Vote Counts More Than You Might Think
One often hears that there is no point in voting because millions and millions of people vote so that no one vote makes much of a difference. But, looked at another way, your vote counts more than you might think. In fact, your vote is really equal to the vote of 3 people. What am I talking about?
According to the census, there are about 36.1 million Californians. According to the Secretaty of State of the State of California, about 22.6 million of them are eligible to vote. Only 15.8 million of them, however, about 70%, are registered to vote. On top of that, in the 2005 Special Election, only about 50% of registered voters, just less than 8 million people, actually voted.
With Federal Congressional and House elections this time around, turnout will probably be a little higher. But not much. What it means is that about 8 million people, 22% of California’s population, are the ones whose voices matter in politics.
When it comes to more local elections, like the race between John Doolittle and Charlie Brown for the 4th District seat in the US House of Representatives, a little more than 339,000 voters decided that seat in 2004.
With general lack of interest and involvement in politics in America today, those of us who are interested and engaged have a much bigger voice.