A plea to Canadian voters, from a disenfranchised neighbor.

jezi-belle:

I don’t know how much y’all understand about the American Electoral College and how it works. The short version is this: each state has a number of electoral votes, and whatever candidate is first past the post in a state wins ALL of that state’s votes. So, for instance, if 51% of a state’s voters vote for the Republican candidate, and 49% for the Democrat, ALL of that state’s electoral votes go to the Republican, despite nearly half the state not voting for them. And electoral votes go by population, so a candidate is better off getting 51% of a big state than 90% of several smaller states.

Through this system, it is 100% possible for someone’s vote to literally not matter. I live in Mississippi, one of the most stubbornly conservative states in the country. There is literally zero chance that Mississippi’s electoral votes will not go to the Republican candidate, no matter who it is. My vote doesn’t matter. Not in a theoretical “oh one vote won’t change anything” way, but in a very literal mathematical way. I’ll still vote, make no mistake, but it won’t do jack. The election is completely decided by voters in those few “swing states” that are genuinely undecided. Everyone else in the country is literally wasting their time.

Our system is broken. Yours is not. (At least, not in this particular way.)

With your representation broken down to the riding level, and your PM determined by the ruling party rather than elected separately from parliament – even a small surge in voter turnout can massively change how an election turns out. A push of fifty or a hundred voters can change the outcome of a single riding, and the shift of a handful of ridings can change the entire future of your country.

I would desperately love to know I had that kind of power. Like, right here? I can volunteer with the Mississippi Democratic party and Bernie Sanders’ campaign and knock on doors and raise money and rabblerouse all I want. Mississippi’s electoral votes are going Republican. No matter what. Period.

Young people in the US are fighting a long, hard, uphill battle to regain control of our own country and our own future. You have a level of power in your hands that most of us never, ever will. Take advantage of it. Go. Fucking. Vote.