Tuesday, voters in Mississippi’s First Congressional District will go to the polls to choose their representative in the U.S. House.
If history is any indicator, more than four out of five registered voters won’t bother.
In the May 12 special election, Democrat Walter Zinn, Jr. and Republican Trent Kelly emerged from a field of 13 candidates to make it to Tuesday’s run-off. In that election, only 87,302 of 457,433 registered voters in the district’s 21 counties voted. That’s just 19 percent of the registered voters.
Between the two of them, the run-off candidates secured just 6.4 percent of that vote.
Chances are, you were far more likely to have watched last year’s Super Bowl (more than one in three U.S. citizens watched the game) than to have voted in the May special election (less than one in five).
If the same number of voters turn out for Tuesday’s election, the winning candidate will only need to secure 9.5 percent of the registered voters to win.
He may need even less than that: Turnout for Tuesday’s election is expected to be as low, perhaps even lower, than it was in May.
Any school child, when asked, will tell you that our country’s form of government is a representative democracy, where citizens elect representatives to create and implement our public policy.
The truth is our country is far less “representative” than we are willing to admit. When as few as 1 in 10 people decide who will represents us in Congress, what form of government do we really have?
So, for the 80-plus percent who didn’t vote in May, we offer a few reasons why you should go to the polls Tuesday.
First, voting is the right of every citizen. If want to have a voice in how our country is governed, this is your best opportunity. Nothing you do will have a greater impact on the decisions our government makes. If you choose not to vote, you have relinquished your right to play a role in your own government.
Second, voting is an obligation. The coals on our Memorial Day grills are still warm, yet when we choose not to vote, we dishonor those who fought and died to establish and protect our system of government, which ensures us a role in government that citizens of many other countries can only dream about.
Finally, voting makes our government better. When a person is sent to Washington with the consent of a large majority of voters, that official is far more likely to be compelled to represent the interests of all of his constituents rather than just the small group of people who actually vote.
The choice is yours to make — or not make.
In some respects, the candidate that emerges from Tuesday’s election is of secondary importance. What really matters is that the people exercised their right and obligation to our country by the simple, painless act of voting.
It is both the least and the most we can do as citizens.
The Dispatch Editorial Board is made up of publisher Peter Imes, columnist Slim Smith, managing editor Zack Plair and senior newsroom staff.
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