Voting has not always been a fundamental human right, nor a privilege received at birth. It is not a gift from heaven, not can its meaning be reduced to a simple printed sheet of paper.
Voting was actually the first truly effective weapon for society. The right to vote was coveted by the many, and the right to vote for the many was fiercely opposed by the privileged classes.
The chronology of the granting and then the extension of the right to vote speaks for itself: for most of history, voting did not even exist for the upper classes. Then, when it was introduced, it was discriminatory: only men, and only wealthy men. In other countries, it was conditioned on the color of your skin.
Then, when the criterion of wealth disappeared, gender discrimination remained for a while (in some cases, blacks couldn’t vote).
Eventually, the right to vote was granted to both women and non-whites.
But each such step forward carries an exorbitant price: revolutions and overthrows of regime, personal sacrifices, deprivations, intimidation. And – very importantly – time, a lot of time dedicated to the cause.
In order for us to be able to vote today, for a long time people had to die; they spent time in prison, they dedicated their lives to a noble but apparently intangible goal.
Many times, the pioneers did not even get to see with their own eyes the fruit of their life’s work, nor to benefit themselves from their success.
Whether you vote or stay at home, you are infinitely more responsible than you can often imagine.
You are responsible to yourself and to the country you live in, but you also bear a huge responsibility in relation to those who sacrificed everything so that people in the future enjoy this right.
Nothing can justify either voting indiscriminately or choosing not to vote. Nothing, no extenuating circumstance exists in either case.
The fact that in the common man has a deep desire to choose his leaders with his own hand is best seen precisely when a country finally comes out of dictatorship. This was Romania’s case after December 1989, as was the case of so many other nations, after they were liberated.
Voting apathy is of course also a reality. A reality, however, associated with anti-virtues such as intellectual laziness, numbness of the senses after long periods of material well-being and social security, loss or dilution of authentic contact with current events and history.
Regardless of whether you go to vote or not, you still choose to choose: either directly or indirectly.
The progress of society can be measured by votes which are made without people carefully weighing their options, or staying away from the ballot box.
The future that awaits you will be fundamentally shaped by both the vote given by those who go to the polls and the level of absenteeism.
Finally, going to vote is also a pressure factor in the relationship with elected officials. The lower the presence, the lower the pressure becomes.
Because voting obliges and confers legitimacy. Politicians will always have narrow margins of hijacking the will of the electorate if the voter turnout was high. And, conversely, they will benefit from ample room for maneuver every time the turnout at the polls is reduced.
The murky political deals made by those elected to high office feed on their lack of legitimacy and the disinterest of the masses.
The quality of elected officials and parties is all the more disastrous the higher the level of absenteeism (of course, and the more superficially the vote is exercised by the voters).
Finally, to understand the extremely high value of the vote and the electoral process as such, we can look for a moment at the dictatorships of our days. Because today’s dictatorships are obsessed with choices.
This façade gives them an alleged respectability, externally, and an alleged legitimacy, internally.
If he hadn’t organized elections (rigged, how else?), not even Putin would have been master of the Kremlin today. And there are no dictators in this world who do not boast about the huge percentages obtained at the polls, a sign – how else? – of the popular will.
In fact, if we remember a little, not even Crimea was annexed by Russia other than by mimicking a vote – by mimicking a referendum. And the other Ukrainian provinces annexed by the Russians on paper were not captured other than by vote – a mimicked vote, a mimicked vote in mimicked referendums.
Nothing can protect the common man better than this right win with great difficulty and with immense sacrifices by the common man – the right to vote.
Staying at home on voting day gives a blank check to those who plan to exercise discretionary power.
A vote given without careful weighing the existing options offers the same blank cheque to the same category of elected officials.
The mind put to work and the ballot paper put in the ballot box – this is our moral duty and this will be our real shield.
