US Elections: Unregistered Voter, Stay Unregistered

Every four years, everyone starts talking about the importance of voting and how we should encourage everyone to go out and vote. Political parties start big voter registration drives in the hopes that these newly registered folks will vote for their candidates. As an astute political observer, I admit that this is good for the political parties but wonder whether it’s beneficial for the country or even democracy?

Federal, state, and local governments want people to vote and that is why registering to vote is such an easy process. I recently moved from one state to another (physical states that is, and not a state of mind although that also changed, but that is a topic for another post) and it took me literally five minutes to register to vote in the new state. Given that this process is so easy, I wonder what it takes for someone to not register to vote. So, if someone is, let’s say, 25 years old and has not registered to vote then that person is a singularly idiotic individual. On top of that, if that person needs an organization to help him/her to register to vote then that person is clearly moronically idiotic.

I was walking through a mall the other day, admittedly not one of my proudest moments, and was accosted by an individual asking whether I had registered to vote. This led me to start thinking about the quality of unregistered voter one would find shuffling through the mall. At such an important time in the history of our nation, i.e. the 2012 presidential election, should any party openly court the vote of a person who emphasizes shopping over registering to vote? They should if they want someone without critical thinking skills, a fanatic desire for conformity and a love of big buckets of buttered popcorn. I suppose that answers the question of why political parties want mall-goers to register to vote.

The question, then, is whether it’s good for the country and democracy that these kinds of folks are being asked to decide our political future. If someone is dumb enough to not register on their own then how can they be expected to sift through the political lies to get to the truth? If provided with two alternative points of view, can this dumbo make the right choice? I don’t think so and that is why I propose that if someone has not registered to vote on his or her own, let them be. Getting these kinds of people into the political process not only destroys my vote but hurts the future of my country. Just give them a bucket of whatever they want, turn their television on, and keep them out of the political process.