You can go vote. I have better things to do.

ILLUSTRATION by JOE MCGARRY

I was a high school senior during the last presidential election, and my friends and I buzzed about the possibilities. But most of us were underage. When November came around, we couldn’t vote.

Now I don’t care about politics. I am too concerned with my own life to take a look at the bigger picture. I know that sounds shallow, but it’s true. Like many other people I know, I’m more interested in turning 21 and drinking legally. I’m consumed with trying to graduate from college while working on a respectable grade point average to keep my scholarship alive. I’ve got two jobs and an internship; instead of taking time to think about whether Ron Paul is the last great hope of real conservatives or whether in voting for Hillary I’ll also get Bill, I worry about making myself a valuable commodity. And I admit this too: I am far more worried about my grandmother’s deteriorating health than I am about the fifth in a line of seven elections Long Beach citizens will take part in over just two years. I’m not saying I’m unique. Some people with issues bigger than mine still go out and vote. But I am not one of those people. I am not even registered to vote.

My decision to sit out the election of 2008 hasn’t earned me any friends. It’s maybe lost me a few. I spent last summer in Washington, D.C., as a participant in the Fund for American Studies Institute on Political Journalism. One day, members of the institute attended a taping of Hardball With Chris Matthews. Matthews called me out on national television, asking me why I—a college-educated woman—am not a registered voter. My answer was simple: There are really no issues or candidates that make me care enough to register and vote.

I know enough to know that the 2008 election is the one that is supposed to get me and people like me—young, idealistic, energetic—turned on. It’s a campaign of firsts: first female, first black, first Mormon, first self-declared Christian conservative who’s been married three times. It’s the first time in half a century that neither a vice president nor an incumbent president is running for office. Coworkers, complete strangers and Chris Matthews try to convince me to vote. But I won’t.

I figure that if I do not want to research the facts and make informed decisions I don’t even have a right to participate in elections. I think an ill-informed vote is a dangerous one. I believe it’s worse to vote without doing the homework than to abstain from voting entirely. Until I have the desire to become informed, I am going to stay silent on the issue of who ought to run the government.

Yes, voter turnout is low; that’s better than a high turnout of uninformed people. Yes, there are countries where people aren’t allowed to vote; but I don’t live there. I live in a democratic republic where every citizen who is not a convicted felon has the freedom to make his or her own decision in the electoral process. That freedom includes the right not to vote, the right to step back and give a greater voice to others.

My uncast vote gives others more of a say. And I am okay with that. This time.

Tags: democracy, elections, voter apathy