While being down here, I've had a few conversations here that I really want to continue to speak about. The first is about the duty of voting versus voting responsibly. Now, I am not going to deny the necessity of voting by any means. Without voting, as an individual your beliefs and ideologies are not represented and therefore prevent those elected from being able to properly serve the people. While the voter turn out for this election may have been an improvement over previous ones, it still is not great and has room to grow. However the question arises: should it grow? Who exactly says everyone should be able to vote? What exactly makes them capable of making such a decision?

In Australia, they implemented a system where every citizen must cast a ballot. While it does ensure that there is a high percentage of voter turn out, it does also bring those who are really apathetic to politics and force them to make a decision. By forcing an apathetic person to cast a ballot for a candidate they do not truly want inaccurately represents the wants of the populous. To me, forcing an apathetic to vote is a waste of a vote. Is this something that we want as a nation? How many people voted in this past election solely based on the idea of “change”? Whether that change be due to having a female Vice President or an African American President, is that really what we want to have as a country? Do we really want someone placed in power because they are different, or because we actually believe in their capability? Personally, while I do believe in the ability of Obama to be a very strong leader, I emphatically disagree with all those who voted merely because he is an African American. I do not think this is a reason to vote at all and in my eyes, I actually count those as wasted votes as well. While it may be great that we now have more people registered to vote and have cast ballots than ever before, the lack of knowledge of the candidate pre-vote, to be frank, scares me. What happens next? If we continue on a path such as this, then every time a candidate slightly different from the normal is on a ballot, does this mean we should worry about votes that aren’t genuine? What if we are elected a president that really isn’t wanted by all or even worse, isn’t qualified, but made it just because he stood on a platform of being different.

While this may seem like a paranoid rant, let’s look at what we have happening already. California, typically a blue state, passed a law repealing same-sex marriages because of voter turnout. Polls prior to the vote showed it was not going to pass, and through a lack of turn out, the proposition passed. What else can happen due to apathy? In all honesty, I don’t want to find out.

I honestly would rather see a lack of a voter turn out than to see a high turn out rate based on something that should not be an issue. In order to vote, you must actually believe in your candidates ability to lead, and not just because of a superficial reason.

Yet despite how strongly I believe that anyone who votes for this reason should not be voting at all...I will never deny them their right to vote. And that is what makes this country so great.