Is voting worth the trouble?

I did not vote in the Presidential election 4 years ago.

That was not a political statement expressing dissatisfaction at the choice between the president and his challenger, neither was I expressing solidarity with satirist P. J. O’Rourke who says, “Don’t vote, it only encourages the bastards.”

My act was a rather grudging acceptance that the authorities who run elections in this country would frown on a non-citizen trying to cast a ballot.

Since then, I was naturalized in 2013 and after 13 years of constitutional cohabitation, America and I put a ring on it. Nothing stood between me and my polling station this go around as I joined the millions who cast their votes early.

Voting in any election is like visiting an Indian buffet in the US. Beneath the veneer of choice, everything tastes somewhat similar. However, that did not stop me from partaking at the table of American democracy.

My excitement at this opportunity after waiting for 16 years since I first came to the US makes me wonder: why is it almost half of Americans don’t bother to vote?

FIGURE 1: VOTER TURNOUT STATISTICS (LINK)

As Figure 1 shows, upwards of 84% of Americans were eligible to vote in 2012, but only about 54% voted.

This apathy is especially chastening considering that democracy, already in short supply, is in continuous retreat worldwide with revanchist tendencies on the rise in undemocratic regimes.

Many of you probably feel voting is waste of time. We have heard it all before - the system is rigged, the fix is in and the new boss will be the same as the old boss. Each vote is a precursor to another betrayal and a worsening of an already degraded status quo. Voting in every election and hoping for something better this time around is like losing money on each sale but hoping to turn a profit on volume.

Democracy feels like groundhog day without Bill Murray in it, say the nonvoters.

Participatory democracy does have important virtues, though.

First, not voting costs me my right to complain.

About 20 years ago, the local government decided to change the name of Bombay to Mumbai.

The British had named the city Bombay from its original Mumbai. Without a vote or any form of public participation, city hall decided that the citizens of Bombay took umbrage at the colonial heritage of their city’s name.

Therefore, about half a century of independence later, rather than turning the page, it was time to go back to a previous page folded conveniently for political gain. The much harder problems crying out for attention would have to wait their turn.

As a teenager, there was nothing I could do to stop that charade.

The lesson I took away was that absent activist citizenry that bands together to hold government accountable, it is almost impossible to stop a march towards folly in our name.

More than two decades hence, I was living in Portland, OR.

Our mayor decided that he had to raise our taxes without a public vote to fix our streets.

This, after years of transportation surpluses were wasted on pet projects that fixed not one street.

This, after a pre-election promise to fix our streets without raising any taxes and by cutting, wait for it, wasteful spending.

Wasteful spending, like the $56,000 the mayor spent by hosting diversity training at a luxury resort rather than hosting the training at city hall or a local hotel at minimal expense.

As a new citizen, I got involved with a group to force a vote.

One of my closest friends, who runs a hair salon, was a leader in this cause. During a meeting, one of the mayor’s cronies told her that she should just pay the tax since her bill would be roughly equal to just 4 haircuts.

Someone should have told this guy that standing on your feet for an hour and cutting someone’s hair is not as easy as, say, lying to win an election.

We started a Facebook group to oppose the mayor, pointed out fabrications in his plan, forced the media to pay attention and showed up to city hall to testify during the rainy and dark Portland winter.

The look I got from the mayor after one such session could have frozen an erupting volcano.

We eventually beat city hall.

Voting sanctifies, maintains and helps culminate this idealism. Fighting for your rights is like biking. It is a skill you don’t forget; but you may forget that you have this skill if you don’t use it.

Stop participating in this most basic right and you will accept larger indignities, like someone taxing you without a vote in a country that is rooted in opposition to such tin-eared tyranny.

Second, elections are a reflection of our society.

You are not lonesome in your lament that our nominees are hardly indicative of our best ideals. But then, neither are we.

The nominees we end up with reflect who we are as a society. For those who somehow believe that we are a rarified people and somehow only the scum rises to the top, I give you the comments section on even the most respected websites on the Internet.

Yet we assume that somehow by virtue of a quadrennial miracle, someone better than all of us, replete with our gifts but bereft of any of our faults, will come and lead us. This person will never prevaricate or obfuscate.

So, whether you like them or not, both the major party candidates, one of whom will be our next president, are a reflection of who we are.

The last time I saw a ballot being cast was when I was a kid, and a poll worker in Mumbai let me accompany my dad as he cast his vote.

When I cast my vote a few days ago, I did not quite feel the emotional high I feel each time I visit the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. as I pay homage to perhaps the greatest leader the world has seen.

However, my reunion with the voting booth did make me briefly forget that my presidential vote is worthless since I live in California.

What I did not forget was the solemnity of the exercise.

Because for months on end (and never-ending months if you live in the U.S.) an army of politicians, operatives, commentators and the permanent media lead a procession of persuasion. Then, in the moment of solitude when you cast your ballot, the silence is the sound of democracy.

That silence is an acknowledgement of who really runs -- or is supposed to run -- the country. As the night unfolds, the electorate, like a sleeping giant awakes and slowly breaks its silence and lifts the veil to reveal a well-kept secret. Regardless of what happens thereafter, the ballot box offers true equality for all.

America looks with reverence at the silent generation. Voting is not as heroic as winning WW2, but it will keep you from becoming the silenced generation.