I was wrong. Yesterday, I wrote a horrible missive on why I wouldn't be voting this election day, 1998. All I can say, is "Where was my brain?"

Most of the email I received in response to my rant was pro-vote, much of it urging me to get out and vote. Unfortunately, I was unable (by choice) to vote and so my vote is absent from my state's polls.

What made me change my mind, you ask? Primarily it was a very thoughtful (and long) response from one of my readers, who spelled out to me exactly why I should go out and vote. This reader made me step back and look at the situation from a different point of view, which I have done.

In response to my reasoning about not having time to vote during the day, he says:

"About time. Nobody has time. You have to make time. You make time to do all the things that really matter to you. But you just haven't figured out why voting should matter, and frankly, you are in the majority these days. Not that the majority is right, but it's tired. Tired of bullshit, tired or irrelevance, tired of unfulfilled promises -- as they should be. But it's just because of that that you should vote. The guys who are running things want it boring, want you to be too busy, want you not to care. Why? So they can keep running things the way they want to. They figure (correctly) if they can just get rid of say half of the voters through apathy, they have a more manageable electorate to manipulate. They do not want independent, maverick minds. They do not want creative people in power. They want only the dutiful, good citizens who can be manipulated by bullshit, empty promises and irrelevant issues. These cattle can be herded, and they are, one after another into the corral, and there are fewer and fewer to worry about every year. So the boys in control get happier and happier every time you fail to exercise your constitutional right to vote."

Well said. If there's one thing I don't like about politicians, it's their manipulative nature. Their jobs, by nature, are about as sleazy as lawyers (no wonder so many politicians are also lawyers). But looking at the situation this way, where the politicians *want* us not to vote...well that put me over to the other side. Now, I am motivated to vote. Now, I have a reason to vote. Now, I can say to my friends, "I voted so the politicians can't get their way."

I still am under the impression that we need a massive overhaul in the way voting is done. We've all heard the rumors of Internet-based voting, and I'm crossing my fingers that it will be ready by the year 2000. This feature alone would motivate me to vote. This feature alone would give millions upon millions of Internet-enabled workers an easy way to "get out and vote" without requiring them to get in their cars, drive to the voting center. Stand in line. Stand in line some more. Close the curtain. Scratch their heads. Make some uninformed choices. And then leave not really knowing who or what they voted for.

With an Internet-based system, all the information you'll ever need would be right there in your face, accessible with the click of a button.

I'm sorry that I didn't vote in this year's elections. But there's little I can do about it now except try and educate the people I know about why I chose not to vote, and also why my opinion has been changed.

In 2000, I'll be at my keyboard, ready to make my contribution to society. Will you?

Cameron Barrett

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