Represent yourself if you want to be represented

By the time this is published, the voting will be done and the race for the Bloomington City Council will (probably) be decided. So, I suppose you should take everything I’m saying with a grain of salt, as the events I describe are a few days old and can’t really be changed except in the future.

A few weeks ago, one of the city council candidates came to speak to my sorority. Although he has different political leanings than myself, he seemed like a nice enough guy, so I wanted to give him an open mind.

He spent 15 minutes covering typical campaign fare; he made promises he couldn’t technically fulfill, he pandered to his audience, he made charming quips, etc. This I can deal with. But at the end of his speech, he said a few words that made me a ticking time bomb of ethically motivated rage.

“If you’re going to vote, you get three votes for City Council. I want you to only vote for me. Don’t use your other votes, because that’s taking votes away from my cause. Only vote for me.” As a politician talking to a group of young people, I don’t know if you could say anything worse than that.

If you have votes, you should use all of them. Even if you choose to only use one vote for one person, not voting for anyone else could mean that he or she is thrown in with and subsequently overruled by people you don’t know and don’t support. One person doesn’t run city council.

Girls applauded afterward and talked for a few days about how “cool” he was but seemed to forget about him. I figured everyone would have enough autonomy to make her own decision, so I let it slide.

Then, on election day, we got an email from the candidate. In large, bold letters, it said those terrible words again: “ONLY VOTE FOR ME.” In a fit of passion, I researched all of the other candidates and composed a list of their incumbent or non-incumbent status and their respective campaign websites and sent it out to the girls in the house.

“If you’re going to vote,” I said, “use all of your votes.” I felt better. When I went to the polls later that day, the candidate who’d motivated all of this decidedly did not get my support. Yet, the most infuriating part of this entire incident wasn’t how unethical a politician was in what he said, it was how little anyone really cared, about his campaign or about what I said.

Here I was, trying to do the right thing in my own stupid little way, and it didn’t even matter, in the same way that his time spent speaking to us didn’t matter; hardly anyone voted anyway.

Today, it seems everyone has an opinion, but no one wants to do anything about it. We all want things in America to start looking up, but we can’t seem to give our vehicle for change, our voice represented by our vote, the 20 minutes it needs.

If you don’t vote, you have no right to complain about anything you’re unsatisfied with in this country. You’re resigning yourself to being a backseat driver, sitting and critiquing while the people at the steering wheel take you wherever they want to go.

So, do your homework on who you’re voting for, use your votes, or shut up. Because really, when you don’t vote, you’re telling the world you don’t care and your views don’t matter. Even though you probably do care, and your views do matter.

It’s your job and yours alone to stand up for yourself and let the world know.

­— kelfritz@indiana.edu