Do Your Duty And Don't Vote If You Don't Know Issues

Don't get out the vote.

How did the notion get started that it is every citizen's duty to vote?

As we approach another presidential election, we are badgered by newspapers, television, radio and other mass media to crowd the polls.

Pundits point with alarm to voter turnouts of barely half the voting-age population.  Americans are compared to Australians and one-party dictatorships which have voter turnouts approaching the purity percentage of Ivory soap.  These countries have laws requiring citizens to vote under penalty of stiff fines.

We haven't yet reached compulsory voting in the United States.  However, the practice of handing out lapel stickers proclaiming "I Voted" is a simple-minded ploy to shame ignorant citizens into destructive action.

The World Almanac lists turnouts of registered voters since the Roosevelt-Hoover election of 1932.  The average is 56.5 percent - the highest being 62.8 percent for the Kennedy-Nixon race, and the lowest being 50.1 percent for the Bush-Dukakis election.

Only 60 percent of the eligible population register to vote.  This despite efforts to corral the disinterested with registration in driving license bureaus, welfare offices and supermarkets.  We seem determined to create bad government.

There has been a steady decline in voter turnout for presidential elections since the high-point in 1960 and the basement count in 1990.  Turnouts for congressional elections hover in the 45 percent range.

Voting slippage can be attributed to two factors - displacement of party influence, and the rise of special- interest groups.  In general, voters these days concentrate on "what's in it for me?"

Surveys of presidential elections by the University of Michigan reveal that less than 25 percent of those voting for president can recall, on election day, a specific fact about the candidates' record or proposals.  The ability to recall anything about lesser candidates is not worth mentioning.

UM studies indicate that 70 percent of the voters make up their minds - in the polling booths at last - on the basis of name recognition.

Approximately 12 percent of the electorate really studies the issues and makes informed judgments about candidates.  These are highly motivated people whose careful study is a precious asset to the nation - when it prevails.

In most elections, however, an emotional slogan tends to sway voters:

• Roosevelt - "The only thing to fear is fear itself."
• Eisenhower - "I will go to Korea."
• Kennedy - "Not what I intend to offer the American people, but what I intend to ask of them."
• Johnson - "American boys will not fight in Asian wars."
• Nixon - "I have a plan to end the Vietnam war."
• Bush - "Read my lips, no new taxes."
• Clinton - "I will give the middle-class a tax cut."

This year's slogans - Dole's "Across the board tax cut," and Clinton's Reaganesque "Are you better off today?  - don't feed the bulldog.

On any given issue, there can be only a relatively small number of people interested enough to dig out the best solutions.  Everyone cannot be equally involved in every thing.

We are awash in political information - most of it contradictory sound bites and bumper stickers devoid of facts.  Consequently, people are highly selective in their attention.

Nevertheless, it is certain that zealots will champion their causes.  An armed militia could not keep them away from the polling booths.  It is only the disinterested that have to be goaded into voting.

It is the obligation of every citizen who understands the issues to vote.  It is the obligation of every citizen who is not informed to stay home.  A 25-percent turnout - unsolicited and freely permitted - is he most effective electorate.  

The proper method of voting is to mark only those candidates and issues you care about and have studied.  One should leave blank those ballots you have not investigated.  Let those voters who are informed make the decisions.

If you are too lazy to make up your own mind on the basis of facts, do the next best thing - consult the editorial endorsements of this newspaper, or vote a straight ticket of the political party best representing your philosophy of government.

This is a poor substitute for personal reflection, but it is better than throwing dice.

Don't be coerced by political enthusiasts into casting a careless ballot.  Stay home, proud in the knowledge that you won't louse up the painstaking labors of others who took the trouble to study.

Just hang loose until an issue or candidate comes along that stirs you to investigate first.  Then it will be your privilege - not duty - to vote intelligently.

PARTING SHOTS

• Ignorance is no excuse.  It's the real thing.
• Clinton accuses Dole of favoring the rich.  Dole says Clinton buys votes from the poor.  Politicians obtain money from the rich, and votes from the poor, on the pretense of protecting one from the other.
• Charlotte County judges are about to install computers which will spit out legal documents with their signatures affixed electronically.  The judges simply press their fingerprints into a scanner.  *** Not to worry about criminals killing a judge and cutting off his fingers to hack into the computers.  A heat sensor makes sure the fingers have a temperature of 98.3 degrees.

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