What If You Had No Voice? VOTE.

by Jason Mark – October 31, 2012Follow Jason Mark on Twitter

Check out this DIY GOTV Video

Living in California, it’s easy to feel a bit distanced from the presidential election. The Golden State is reliably Blue, so we don’t get many presidential ads here, or canvassers, or mailers about Obama or Romney. Like safely Red Texas, we’re mostly used as an ATM. The presidential candidates pop in, do a fundraiser, and bounce.

I can’t play at that major donor level, and my 50 bucks don’t mean much in the era of Super Pacs. But I wanted to do my small part to Get Out the Vote.  So some friends of mine and I put together this quick and dirty little video.

The point is pretty simple: Your vote counts.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat, an Independent or a Green or a Libertarian. There’s one thing we can all agree on:
Voting matters. (Even, or especially, the vote suppressors get that.)

In a 1974 US Senate election in New Hampshire, Republican Louis Wyman beat Democrat John Durkin by just two votes. Four years ago, in 2008, Democrat Al Franken beat Republican Norm Coleman in a Senate race in Minnesota by only 312 votes. And who can forget the presidential race of 2000, when a scant 537 votes in Florida put the country on a knife-edge for weeks?

Check out the video. And then please spread the clip to friends, family, and anyone you know who is considering sitting out this election.

Jason Mark, Editor, Earth Island Journal
Jason Mark is a writer-farmer with a deep background in environmental politics.  In addition to his work in the Earth Island Journal, his writings have appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle, The Nation, The Progressive, Utne Reader, Orion, Gastronomica, Grist.org, Alternet.org, E magazine, and Yes!  He is a co-author of Building the Green Economy: Success Stories from the Grassroots and also co-author with Kevin Danaher of Insurrection: Citizen Challenges to Corporate Power. When not writing and editing, he co-manages Alemany Farm, San Francisco’s largest food production site.

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