I did not cast a vote for president of the United States.
I didn’t stay home. I performed my civic duty by exercising the right so many have died to protect by voting for every down-ballot office.
I am not a spectator to this election.
I voted for John Gregg for governor, who I pray will overturn Mike Pence’s toxic policy of conversion therapy for LGBT youth and whose administration I’m confident will lead to a productive and bolstering Indiana economy.
I eagerly voted for Evan Bayh in hopes that his victory might restore majority power to Democrats in the Senate and thereby make Sen. Bernie Sanders, D-Vermont, the Senate Budget Committee chairperson.
I voted for independent Drew Ash for state representative because I believe in demolishing the two-party system and making young progressives an integral part of the lawmaking process.
The results of these three races will be decided by extremely close margins, so I know my vote matters in each of them.
I could not cast a vote for Hillary Clinton — who took 66 years to figure out gay people deserve equal rights, who can’t decide whether she supports destructive trade policies and whose charity foundation makes “little distinction between the private and public aspects of their lives, between the pursuit of personal enrichment, the operation of a nonprofit, and participation in U.S. politics,” as the Wall Street Journal notes.
Someone whose foreign policy record has been commended by Henry Kissinger.
Someone who promised only a public option in the Affordable Care Act instead of Medicare-for-all and wants to make college affordable only to those whose families make less than $125,000 per year instead of for everyone.
Someone who’s commitment to progressive values is “conditional” at best.
Donald Trump is the anti-Christ, but Clinton hasn’t earned my vote.
A change in one of two things, however, would have allowed me to contribute to the election of Hillary Clinton.
The first is awarding Electoral College votes proportionally so my vote actually matters, but the other is single transferable voting, a method that is already used in Minneapolis and Cambridge and that Maine is considering adopting.
This system allows you to rank candidates by preference instead of committing your undivided support to just one candidate, as is required by first-past-the-post voting.
Under our current system, there’s no distinction made between those who are feverishly excited to be “With Her” and those who are simply voting against Trump.
There’s also no way to vote third-party without being berated by a barrage of guilt-inducing attacks and promises that you wasted your vote.
With single transferable voting, if you first choice — a third party candidate, for instance — has the least amount of votes, your vote will count toward your second preference — perhaps a major party candidate.
This way, all arguments against voting third party are invalid. More people would probably feel comfortable voting outside the two-party system, and third-party candidates would more easily attain five percent of the popular vote to make them eligible for public funding in the next cycle.
In our rapidly diversifying nation of 320 million people, our voting system needs a serious upgrade. We need more choices and a voting system that allows us to show preference for each of those choices so the voice of the American people is more accurately represented.
