Voter Turnout

This election cycle has seen an unprecedented focus on voter turnout. I thought each of the prior cycles which I can recall had already ploughed this furrow. But apparently not to the extent of this one.

Of course, illegal activities by Acorn, and the infamous 'motor voter' laws have made registration easy and, thus, much more prone to fraud.

But even if these changes had not occurred, the entire question of whether it's really a good thing to have higher voter turnout needs to be asked.

This is probably a taboo subject.

In prior election years for the past decade, I recall the Wall Street Journal publishing, close to each quadrennial election date in November, an editorial written by one particular high school teacher. His point was always the same, regardless of in which year he wrote his piece: there are some Americans whom you really don't want in that polling booth.

By describing the incredibly bad sense of both American history and current world events among his charges, the editorialist reminded us of the danger of too many ill-informed and bad-thinking people voting for our governing officials.

Even now, living amidst communities of fairly well-educated and well-read Americans, I am astonished by the lack of accurate knowledge of various financial, fiscal and current event topics by many of my acquaintances. I shudder to think of what happens when even less-well-educated people troop to the polls and cancel the votes of better-informed Americans.

Despite being a conservative, I'm not advocating that only people who may, statistically-speaking, tend to vote liberal/Democratic, be disenfranchised.

Rather, I'm disturbed by the personality cults and thoughtless desires for 'change.'

For example, my squash partner last night expressed that oft-heard appetite for 'some change.' When I noted that Bush wasn't running, so we're going to have 'change,' no matter who wins, he grimaced.

He couldn't identify one accomplishment of the rookie Senator from Illinois. Not one.

I guess my point is that while it's in each party's interest to identify and mobilize all their registered voters, somehow I feel that this leads to bad election results.

Wouldn't it be much better to simply rely on those people sufficiently engaged and aware of the importance of their vote, without being either cajoled, paid or otherwise driven- sometimes literally- to vote? It's simply hard to believe those sorts of voters have given careful thought to the effect of each of their votes on today's ballot.

Instead, each party is simply cramming as many of its registered voters, thoughtful or not, into the polls.

No wonder so many politicians believe we are a politically divided nation. They are abetting this trend by pushing party-only voting on the part of many otherwise-disinterested adults.

It almost certainly puts me in a minority, but I'd actually prefer a lighter voter turnout. Both this year, and in most election years. Give me a thoughtful, if smaller core of voters determining the direction of my country, rather than a shotgun blast of newly-registered, uninformed and illogical voters swamping those who actually pay attention to the national agenda month in, month out, every year.