I never thought I'd take the part of
someone who doesn't vote, but I do.
It galls me that people are so lazy or
careless they take no interest in who rules over them.
But I will not live in a world where one
is compelled to vote.
I used to look to the Australia model
and think it was wise.
In that fair land a voter who doesn't
vote is fined. I was told by an Aussie mate this was to ensure that no one
would ever be intimidated into not voting.
I accepted this at face value. I even
thought it was okay.
I've even suggested we ought to do it
here.
I am now heartily ashamed of that
stance.
The true measure of democracy isn't
being free to do what you want: it's being free to not do it.
Why the turnaround?
My husband and I visited Latvia,
Lithuanian, and Estonia last spring. We met people who lived under the
Communist regime, among them our tour guide Simona Vasilevskyte and her mother,
Ona Sagevičienė,
also a tour guide.
One evening in Riga Ona Sagevičienė's tour intersected with ours and she joined a few of us for
dinner.
She told us stories of her life under Soviet
rule.
Drunken college students* sang a song one night
about how Lithuania would one day be free.
They disappeared.
A man she was in University with was usually
drunk and he never seemed to do any work. It was commonly believed he was there
spying on the students.
He had few friends.
 |
| Ona Sagevičienė |
This brings me to elections.
On election day the ballot was ready and
waiting for you to post. If you didn't, then you were never seen again.
I sat across a table from a woman who had
friends and acquaintances disappear. It chilled me to my marrow.
We have no such worries here. We are free to ignore
elections with no repercussions.
That is freedom and I will have it no other
way.
In a final note there are those who say they
don't vote as a gesture of protest.
Nonsense.
Not voting is an exercise of freedom, not a protest.
While I'd rather you voted, and I will be
casting my assorted ballots in the upcoming general election, if you don't want to, then you have my full
support in this exercise of our freedom.
**
In a related matter here's a joke we heard
about Soviet election life:
A citizen once opened a ballot and was told he
couldn't do that.
"But I wanted to see who I voted for."
"You can't," the citizen was told.
"It's a secret ballot!"
##
CORRECTION:
*I erred in the fate of the college students. Ona S. has told me via email the two successful third year students were dismissed, not disappeared.
They finished later through distance education.
I apologize for the error. We heard many stories of persons disappearing. I remembered this wrong.
It snowed yesterday.
