People who don't vote...

Lazy and apathetic...

I used to vote but now that I live in Texas I do not because there is no hope for this state. And my one little vote does not count for any thing. In addition, I have yet to firgure out the political system here and do not feel comfortable voting for people I do not know and things I do not understand.

Texas really is a whole other country.

Just argued with my hubby about this last night. He contends that the people who don't vote probably shouldnt be voting. I say it is a persons civic duty.

I almost didn't vote yesterday -- the reasons were that my vote in the primary wouldn't count for much (Kerry, already a shoo-in, though he apparently made it official with his Illinois win) and I happen to live in a highly Republican area, so the local stuff was R, R, R, R. That and the fact that I was crazy busy yesterday.

But I decided to vote for a) general sense of civic duty and b) to be contrarian. :-) (The Republicans still won, but the contrarian business made me feel a little better.)

Edit: I said "shoe-in"!! One of my pet peeves, and I did it! Argh.

My opinion: Those who don't vote have no right to complain!

People who don't vote (at least in presidential elections) observe what they get. Then again, I sometimes think they don't notice--or don't care much.

Really, the lack of participation in US elections is a scandal and a disgrace. Here we are, racing around the world to bring democracy (supposedly) to Afghanistan and Iraq, and our own citizens don't vote. Then again, if more people did, maybe we wouldn't be racing around the world like this...

I won't be able to go to the Polls and vote in the next election for president, because I'll be doing Jury duty.

I don't know whether I qualify for an absentee ballot.

That's a good point. I would vote for Bush in the next election, if I would vote. However, I live in a "Kerry state" and my vote for Bush probably wouldn't count for much.

Most people I know who do not vote say because there is no one good to vote for; they are all crooks, or their vote does not matter. In any case, I think it is because they are lazy and do not care. It is really sad. In my opinion, your vote does matter even if it is shoe-in. It still says x number of people voted for some one else and in my city the vote for mayor was so close that every vote truly did count.

Miller -You should still be able to vote even though you have jury duty. Typically polls are open as early as 7:00 and as late as 8:00 or very close to that. Usually jury duty is over at 4:30 and if you end up not getting selected even earlier. How do people that work 9-5 vote? They go either first thing in the morning or after work.

I think that by law, workers are supposed to given a few hours off from their job, in order to vote.

The last time I was on Jury duty, we had to show up at 8 am and we were there till 5 pm. Then there's the time on the bus!

My job does not give us time to vote. But I either go on my way into work or on my way home.

If jury duty is until 5 then unless your bus ride is more than a couple of hours then you should still be able to vote. If not check on absentee ballot. It was very easy when to get and to vote using it.

Geez, if only 600 or so of those that thought it didn't matter had voted, Gore might have been president. But, hopefully the Dems will keep thinking it won't matter and stay home next time as well.

Someone once told me it was their right not to vote.
Americans are pretty self-absorbed and apathetic. They aren't glued to their TVs waiting for the newscast, they aren't buying newspapers like they used to....their vote doesn't make a difference, no one is worth voting for...politics is all nonsense...on and on the excuses go, and where it stops? Monarchy is where. Do they care? No. Are they worried? No. Do they think anything will change? No.

In some ways they are right, after all. What does government succeed in solving besides increasing its power over us? The first step towards more freedom with gay marriages, and they would rather shut it down. The vote, i.e., working to effect change through the system doesn't seem to work very well, because those elected just start doing what they want instead of what they pledged.

The bottom line I think is the lack of education. People don't understand politics, and they don't want to look like dummies. That old, it is impolite to discuss politics and religion in groups did much to ending awareness of what is going on. For that matter, you have to pursue the information. The media is woefully inadequate in educating Americans about the issues.

The vote to effect change didn't work so hot in the early 1900s, but they did have some successes. A century later, the election of 2000 demonstrated just how little voting matters.

Sure, they wave the flag, and they stand proud as patriots in a republic, but the republic is a far cry from what it used to be. The USSC demonstrated that the popular vote means nothing, and the electoral vote determines the leader of this country...even though the electoral vote is supposed to reflect the popular vote, but it didn't in 2000, so the people are not the ultimate power here....government is....and that is not a republic.

We need to take back our government like Spain did, or else start forcing government to behave properly somehow. I think it will take more than voting to achieve this, but as to what will work, ????????????????????

The tax is the power. Without taxes, our government would be powerless.

Nobody wants everything to fall apart, but they don't want to vote to save it either, so...I suggest durable goods might be the thing to stock up on. We might be wiser to expend our energy toward struggling to survive a downturn instead of struggling to make ourselves rich. Having tons of investments is risky if the whole system collapses....poof, there goes your fortune.

Do you really think our government is going to solve all the problems and create a new age of prosperity and wisdom for all of us? Especially when a huge chunk of people aren't even paying attention?

If we don't start sharing and cooperating with each other, we are not going to survive.

What will you do when you find out the majority like things the way they are and disagree with you on many of your hot topics?

What will you do if teh majority DOESN'T want gay marriage legal? Or they WANT the US to continue the war on terrorism? What then? You keep saying that people should rise up, I say they already have and this is what we got. You simply don't like the results. Take back our government? From who?

Daniel Carver also says to wake up...

Well I do care and will probably vote in the Presidential election as this time things are shaping up quite nice with Kerry and Bush actually saying what they think, at least that is my hope.

But like I said it will take some time before I feel I have some knowledge about Tejas politics and comfortable voting on issues and people running for office. Yikes this place is way more complicated that Japanese politics were for me. But I was younger then and probably could learn easier. I was not able to vote but followed Japanese politics in the English dailys.

And I do agree it is a duty to vote if you want to have a say in things.

A large percentage of the population simply doesn't keep track of the issues. I think it wouldbe horrible if such people voted.

I asked my secretary why she doesn't vote, and she said that #1, she doesn't believe it makes a difference, and #2, she's not interested in politics and doesn't want to spend time having to learn about them, so figures she shouldn't vote without the knowledge. Conversely, she said she doesn't complain about the way things go, figuring she doesn't have the right to.
Some people don't realize how 'close to home" politics is, and are content to take whatever comes.
UNTIL they experience something they may have been able to prevent or change.

I probably won't bother this year--unless there's a local election or a ballot question I care about(doubtful, since it's an off-year for town offices, the governor &, I think both Senate seats), I'll stay home. My state will go for Live-Shot--that is a foregone conclusion in this place.

Honestly, I couldn't vote for either of those crooks under any circumstances.

I'll vote for "laziness." I know a number of folks (eg some of my employees) who hold strong opinions for or against Mr Bush. But when I ask them if they will actually register and vote...the answer is "no." They're just too busy.
I'm one of the few Dems in a largely Repub District in a Repub leaning state. I once figured out how many times my candidate came up on the losing side. I think I'm at about 95%. But I'm always there at the voting booth at a few minutes after 7 am. It's an exercise of futility, jousting at windmills, perhaps. but to do nothing strikes me as just plain stupid.