By JUSTIN TINDER, Student Reporter
This article originally ran on November 3, 1988 in the Northwestern news.
Now is the time for all good citizens to come to the aid of their nation. No, this is not typing practice, just the age-old plea for everyone to vote in the general election, Tuesday.
There have been several articles written about why people should go out and vote. It really is a shame that they are necessary. It’s regrettable that Americans don’t take seriously the responsibility that the founding fathers fought to make their right.
Around the country, voter turn-out flounders around the 50-percent level.
A check at the Woods County Courthouse revealed that in the 1984 general election only 7,125 (65 percent) of 10,900 eligible persons bothered to register to vote, and only 5,433 actually cast is a ballot. What all this means is that less than half of the Woods County electorate voted.
These figures really are embarrassing. How can we claim our position as the world’s leader for democracy while fewer than half of the eligible electorate participates in the selection of our leaders. We surely are setting a bad example.
People shouldn’t let the fact that their candidate is ahead or behind in the polls determine whether or not they will go ahead and vote. It is dangerous to assume that their vote won’t make a difference. If they think that way, there are bound to be a million others who think the same way.
In 1960, John Kennedy overcame a deficit in the polls and won the presidency with an advantage of only 112,000 votes out of 70 million cast. Just think, if those 112,000 people believed that their votes didn’t matter, Richard Nixon would have been erasing tapes eight years earlier.
Americans should be doers not watchers. America can’t afford to continue to let the minority make decisions for the majority simply because the majority is too lazy or disinterested to vote.