The Michigan Review

The Ignorant Voter

As election day rapidly approaches, the electorate will soon become deluged with exhortations on the importance of exercising their right to vote. Newspapers will run their usual “be sure to get out and vote” editorials. MTV will once again attempt to “Rock the Vote” by trying to get all those apolitical and apathetic Generation Xers to take off their headphones and pick up a ballot. Unfortunately the media always talks about the importance of exercising the right to vote, but they never mention the responsibilities that go along with it.

The following anecdote, from Russell Kirk’s The Politics of Prudence, unfortunately exemplifies the attitudes of many voters today — Smithson: “Gee, boss, I don’t know nothin’ about them guys Kennedy and Nixon, except what I see on TV. What’ll I do? Employer: “Jack Smithson, the thing for you to do is not to vote; stay home.” Smithson: “Oh, I got a right to vote; I’m gonna vote, all right.” Employer: “You lost that right when you stopped paying attention to politics; or maybe you never started paying any attention, Jack.” Smithson: “Don’t give me that: I gotta right to vote. Why, if it wasn’t for voters like me, them smart guys would be runnin’ everything in Washington."

What the fictional Smithson and many real-life Americans fail to comprehend is that all true political rights have corresponding responsibilities. American citizens certainly do have the right to vote by law, but they also have a responsibility to stay informed about political issues and candidates. An ignorant voter is as useless in guarding the fate of the Republic as a non-voter. The moment an eligible voter ceases to pay attention to the political arena, he forfeits his suffrage rights. The best thing he can do for the country is to stay home on election day, for a vote cast in ignorance is of no substantive value and can only serve to harm rather than help the nation.

In order for a vote to become truly meaningful, it must be the result of the informed judgment of a civic-minded individual who appreciates the gravity of the task he has been given. This is a nation governed by the people. The choices made in that small booth will affect the lives of millions and the destiny of a nation. But most Americans do not view voting this way. They either see it as an inconvenience or something which can be done in haste with little or no thought at all.

Ignorant voters also pose a serious threat to the democratic ideal itself, for they are easy prey to political demagogues such as Huey Long, George Wallace, Coleman Young , and Geoffrey Feiger. These are men who appeal to voters’ emotions rather than their intellects, their ignorance rather than their knowledge, and their material needs rather than their responsibilities to their fellow citizens and community. Uninformed voters afford self-serving demagogues easy access to positions of power. Once there, these unscrupulous individuals are free to abuse their power, plunder communities, and ignore the true interests of their constituencies. The ignorant voters who give these men power are as much to blame, if not more so, for the damage they do to democracy and liberty, as the demagogues are themselves. As the Irish statesman Edmund Burke observed, “Men of intemperate mind never can be free; their passions forge their fetters.”

Voting is not just a right, it is a privilege — a privilege bought and paid for with the blood spilled by the American colonist at Lexington and Concord and the simple GI on the beaches of Normandy. Citizens should not vote simply because they feel they have to, or because they feel guilty if they do not vote. They should only vote when they have examined the political scene carefully and are ready to cast an informed and thoughtful ballot. To those who choose to remain politically ignorant, when election day rolls around, do the country and your fellow citizens a favor: stay home and watch Jerry Springer. MR

This article was published in the 7 October 1998 edition of The Michigan Review (Volume 17, Number 2).
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