The Ballots will come out in the next few days! This will be the chance we need to get a lot of signs out of our yards.

We’ll have the ballots for about a month before election day. Will you vote early and get the ballot off the coffee table, or will you wait until the last minute to see if one of the candidates does something of colossal stupidity?

The "most dangerous woman in America," the great Emma Goldman once said "If voting changed anything, they'd make it illegal."


Emma Goldman, anarchist and patriot

There is much to recommend Goldman’s belief that voting, at best does nothing, and at worst gives popular blessing to the actions of the power elite. Talmon’s idea of "totalitarian democracy" where the people vote but social and political forces reduce the meaning of their vote comes to mind..

While that whole idea does sound a little familiar, we here at the Prospect want you to ignore Goldman and Talmon and William Burroughs, too for that matter. They are political nihilists, We think voting does matter.


Burroughs: Thanks for a country where
nobody's allowed to mind their
own business.

Voting matters for three reasons.

First, because, if there is any hope, it is through voting. If we lose faith in the ballot, we’ve lost any chance at self governance.

Second, because not voting is surrender. Anyone who watches the news understands how precious the ballot box is. Without that, our choices are slavery or civil war.

Finally, if our vote ever counts anywhere, it is in our county elections. Our votes have the power of thousands of urban dwellers, because there are so few of us. We know our local candidates, they are often very accessible to us.

So, Vote! If democracy has a chance it’s because citizens inform themselves, and vote.

Fill it in! Mail it off!

When you’re done voting, come back to the Prospect to vote in our reader poll, which we’ll put up in the next edition.


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