Sunday, September 12, 2010

Vote for Dayton, Emmer, Horner, or nobody; but VOTE!

I left the following comment on a Star Tribune editorial, "This November, the choice is not either/or".

Whatever you do in November, vote one of four ways according to what you believe, not what the polls say.  Remember 1998 when the poll rankings were Humphrey, Coleman, and Ventura.  The election rankings were Ventura, Coleman, and Humphrey.

Four ways, what fourth way?  The fourth way is to not be a stay-away.  If you don't like any of the three candidates, vote anyway with a blank ballot.  If you leave a blank ballot for governor your vote is counted.  If you stay away, your vote is not counted.

If everybody who stayed away in 1980 and many other elections had cast a blank ballot, the winner would have come in second to none-of-the-above.  There would not be any trumpeting about a landslide with less than 30 percent of the eligible voters casting a vote for the "winner".  When this happens, we are all losers.