A few weeks ago, I had a chance to chat with an old friend about the upcoming elections and voting.
I confessed over a latte to being a political junkie.
She confessed to not being a political junkie.
“I hate politics,” she said. “Things in our country are a mess! I don't even vote.”
I tried to shame her into taking an interest in politics by explaining how it's these people who make all the decisions that directly affect her and her family. But, to no avail.
As we talked about why she doesn’t vote, she explained her reasons.
She ticked off the reasons like she was reading off a shopping list:
She doesn’t know where to vote.
She knows the candidates too well to vote for any of them.
It’s not like they really do anything that affects anyone or anything.
It’s a pain to get up and go out and vote.
It’s not like her one vote is going to make a difference anyway.
She feels stupid voting because it seems like an "old people thing to do".
She doesn’t really care what happens in politics anyway.
I stared at her after she finished talking. She took a long sip of her soda, looking around and waving at people she knows.
She’s an educated and articulate woman who just gave me what she deems excellent reasons for not voting.
Before I had a chance to formulate a rebuttal to any of her reasons, she excitedly told me that she loved the song that we heard playing overhead.
It was Kelly Clarkson, the first American Idol winner. I know this because she told me. I wouldn’t have known on my own.
Which is why what she said next brought me to a dead stand still.
“I voted for her!” she exclaimed. Then she went on to explain how, every week for the past however many seasons American Idol has been on the air, she has religiously watched the shows, casting her votes and eagerly awaiting the results another night.
“I have never missed a vote,” she said proudly.
I stared. She had rendered me speechless for several long seconds. Which is really not all that easy to do.
I drank my coffee, trying to gather my thoughts as she told me she records the shows she has to miss and turns off her phone when the results of the voting are announced.
“If I have to miss it to be at a meeting, I’ll sneak out and call home to find out the results,” she said.
Laughing, she told of how she once sat at home, voting over and over again, trying to change the outcome of the vote.
“I was voting all night!” she said, laughing.
At this point, the caffeine finally kicked in and I had a moment of clarity.
I said, “But your vote doesn’t make a difference.”
She stared back at me.
“Of course my vote makes a difference!” she said.
Then I had her.
"You just told me you don't vote because your 'one vote doesn't make a difference'," I said, smiling, and taking a long sip from my mug.
She stared at me, blinking wordlessly.
“Do you realize that every week, across town somewhere, elected officials are passing laws, spending tax dollars, and raising fees and fines, and you don’t care one bit? You don’t even know who is making all these decisions that impact your life directly?”
I began to point out how her reasons for not voting in an election would sound if applied to why she shouldn’t vote in American Idol.
She sputtered a few protests at first, saying that 'this is different', but, in the end, she threw her hands up in defeat.
And she was a good sport about it, I have to admit, when I got back to the part about her “one vote not making a difference anyway.”
She agreed that perhaps her reasons for not voting might not be entirely valid.
What it came down to, she admitted, is that politics is boring.
She also admitted that while she cannot name anyone on the city council, school board, county board, or even the four people who represent our area at the state and federal legislative level - she CAN name all the people who have been finalists for the past five American Idol seasons.
And she wonders why "things in our country are a mess."