VOTING, NOT VOTING AND BULLETING

When I became old enough to vote, I thought the responsible thing to do was vote the maximum—that is, vote for the maximum number of open positions for candidates and vote on every issue. I guess I thought that because of the drumbeat to VOTE. Of course, if one can know all the candidates and have an educated opinion on all the issues, then this is the responsible thing to do.

Practically speaking, very few of us can manage this. Later I realized that voting “the max” wasn’t being responsible, for I was guessing far too much, and if guessing wrong, I could be doing harm rather than good. Better to let those do the voting who knew the candidates I didn’t and had studied the issues with which I was not familiar. So I began to vote only for those candidates I felt I knew enough about and liked, and on those issues I felt I knew enough about. Of course if there were only two candidates for one slot, and one I knew to be a very bad choice, I might vote for the other provided he or she didn’t come as poorly recommended. Issues, as they were worded, often required considerable untangling. I think they do better about this now.

Then someone told me about bulleting and that made sense. If, for example, there were three candidates for two VP positions, and I wanted to be SURE candidate A got in, I could be hurting his (or her) cause if I voted for candidates A and B—even if B was a decent enough candidate. Why? Because, let us say, at the final tally (before my vote) A had 7 votes, B had 8 votes, and C had 10 votes, then after my vote for A and B, the two winners would be B (9) and C (10), and my man would lose. On the other hand, if I had “bulleted” A, C would have still won, and it would have forced a tie between A and B. If TWO of us had bulleted A, then A and C would have won.

The point I learned is that you do the responsible thing: vote, not vote or bullet.

I wish I could say I have always been happy with how those things and people I have voted for have turned out. As I’ve told my kids, that hasn’t always been the case––but I keep trying.