Resisting apathy during elections

By Sharn Dhah
The Collegian

I AM A jaded voter. I’m beginning to think that what I vote for doesn’t matter, that my vote doesn’t count in the bigger scheme of things and the things I care about just won’t come to pass.

It wasn’t always this way. I remember when I was a kid and my parents would let me stand in the voting booth with them and tell me which holes to punch.

I thought it was fun to stick the metal needle through the paper and I felt like I was contributing to something important.

If my mom couldn’t decide which candidate to vote for, she let me decide and I usually picked the woman’s name, if there was one, because I liked the idea of women being in charge of something.

I remember being 15 and looking over my mom’s shoulder, not having a say anymore in who or what she voted for.

I watched as her pen hovered over Proposition 22 whispering, “Vote NO, vote NO,” upset, as she marked “YES” instead, because it’s what my dad told her to mark. I sulked during the car ride home.

I mailed in my voter registration form a few weeks before I turned 18, because I was excited that I would finally get to vote on my own and make important decisions that would affect the country.

But the next year, in my first presidential election, the person I voted for didn’t win. The person I voted for as governor of California during the recall didn’t win.

Over the years, many things I voted for didn’t pass. Watching as the results came in on TV all night made me anxious. It was hard to bear.

It got to the point where, one year, I was so busy with school and other things that I forgot to go to my neighborhood-polling place to cast my ballot.

And I didn’t care. I didn’t think that it would have mattered anyway.

Now I’m just confused when it comes to all the different propositions and candidates I’ve never heard of running for offices I didn’t know existed.

The commercials on TV don’t help. They all contradict each other. I can’t stand the mudslinging. It seems so hateful. How can I trust anything these politicians say?

It’s getting hard to tell them apart. My images of them start to blur until they start to look the same.

Lately it feels like I’m choosing between the lesser of two evils. Whatever happened to third parties? Where is their visibility?

Apparently, many other voters feel this way too, which may help account for the declining voter turnout in recent years.

However, I still vote. What shook me from my apathy? No, it wasn’t P. Diddy rocking the “Vote or Die” shirts.

It’s not even that I have faith in the democratic process.

I vote because I can’t stand not having a say in what happens. I refuse to give up what little control I have, disillusioned as I may be.

So I try to educate myself the best I can before Election Day and I go to the polls ready to exercise the right that was so hard fought for years ago.

I don’t think we can just stop voting because it’s too confusing or seems pointless. Those aren’t good enough reasons. So if your favorite horse doesn’t win this year, great.

Try again next year.

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