Debt Free

Too many people feel their vote doesn’t count. The number of elections in this country decided by a sliver should dispute this notion, but wouldn’t it be great if there was a way to get your vote to count for 2 or 3 times what is usually does? You may still feel that your vote doesn’t count, but then you’d be twice or three times as wrong as usual with such a statement.

How the hell are you supposed to pull that off, minus some creative ballot box stuffing or other election shenanigans? It’s pretty easy, really. Just cast a vote in the oft-neglected primary elections. In many primaries the voter turnout is downright abysmal; on the order of 15 – 20%, sometimes even lower, especially in an off year contest. That means your vote will count for 3 times as much as when the voter turnout is 45 – 60%. The reasons for the low voter turnouts are, for the most part, fairly simple. The electorate tends to view the primary as less important than the general election, and the primary elections are far less publicized than the general election. You typically don’t see multi-million dollar campaign expenditures in a primary.

There are, however, many important issues decided during many primaries, not the least of which is who the hell you’ll get to decide between in the coming general election. Some of the smaller primaries may be even more important to you at the local level, as many tax issues are on the ballot during this time. Tired of your property taxes going up and up and up? Maybe you should have taken a trip to the polls to vote down the levy or other tax inducing legislation when they were on the primary ballot.

A bit of campaigning to friends, relatives, and associates could magnify your influence even more. Get a group of like minded voters headed to the polls, who otherwise might have stayed away, and your ARM may be the only thing going up, not your property taxes.