Why I Did Not Vote This Election | The Odyssey Online
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Why I Did Not Vote This Election

And why I am now regretting it

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Why I Did Not Vote This Election
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Before I get into this article, yes, I feel genuinely terrible for not voting. But I do not feel like my voice went unheard. I am conservative, and I am from Charleston, South Carolina, where the only way you can win an election as a democrat is as mayor. So without voting, everyone I wanted to win their elections still won their elections.

But I did not vote at all. Outside of the presidential election, I was uninformed. All I knew was that Tim Scott, South Carolina Senator, was up for reelection. The other reason is that we all know just how much of a debacle the presidential election was. I was initially on the Gary Johnson train, but then I realized he had no idea what was going on, and that I couldn't even get behind him as a candidate, even as a throw-away vote.

Let's go back, and see why someone like me who loves to talk policy fell out of love with this election. In the primaries, I voted for Marco Rubio. Man did I wish that he, or John Kasich, was the Republican nominee, but I would have voted for any of them, even Carly Fiorina. Just... I could not bring myself to vote for Donald Trump. Let’s be fully honest here, even Trump wasn’t xenophobic, his narcissistic douchebagery was painful to watch.

And then there is the Democrats. The two main things that separate democrats and republicans at their core is economics and abortion, and I am on the conservative side on both these issues. I'm just saying that socialism doesn't make logic on any level, and that if you have a kid, it's a human when it's conceived. So basically, voting for me is finding the best red candidate, and riding that pony until he or she drops out the race, or gets the nomination, and if he or she doesn’t, I find the next best candidate. But when Trump became the only option… I kind of felt that this was not an option, almost like I had no option.

Which leads to why I did not vote. I was not about to vote for either candidate. My head couldn't handle Hillary, and my heart couldn't handle Trump, and vice-versa. So I logged on to get my absentee ballot, and when I saw that there was more than one step to have it mailed to me, I just exited off the page, and never bothered to have it mailed. I felt like I just didn’t want to do it. I was uninformed in the races I was voting in, not ready to vote democrat, and just as not ready to put Donald Trump in the Oval Office. Now that it’s happening, and I didn’t vote, I’m gonna just roll with it, knowing damn well since I didn’t vote, I have no right to complain.

Basically, voting for me is a formality that I wish I at least did. I would have written Ben Zobrist's name in for president, and outside of Tim Scott, I honestly have no idea who would be running for the House in South Carolina's second district, and no idea what any of the other positions even are. I know a quick Googling of that would have fixed my issue, but I just had no drive to participate in this god-forsaken election, which is terrible because as we speak, somewhere in the world, some sh*tty dictator is running a show election to raise his people's opinion of him, and going to win "100%" of the vote.

The long and short of this story is I'm going to vote in 2020, even if that does end up meaning a vote for Trump. God, that is hard to swallow.

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