Ed Wood "The Right Stuff" Published Oct. 23, 2002

Do us a favor on Election Day
-- stay at home!

You can always tell when it's an election year. All those people running around trying to "get out the vote." Well, I'm not so sure it's a good idea. In fact, I am sure it's NOT a good idea.

Why? Because most of the time these efforts do nothing to improve the quality of the democratic process. Generally they are directed toward influencing one special interest group or another, and they do so by appealing to the more ignorant and the more uninformed among us. And let's face it, there are simply more ignorant voters out there than there are educated ones!

Last week House and Senate negotiators agreed on a $4 billion dollar package that would mandate new electronic voting machines in all precincts, tighten voter identification requirements, tighten up polling place security, and provide other measures to help eliminate some of the alleged fraud of the last presidential election. But before the bill is even scheduled for a vote, civil rights groups are protesting its content - such as requiring first-time voters to furnish some form of identification when they show up to vote, and the inclusion of the question on voter registration forms, "Are you a citizen of the United States of America?"

You can't cash a check, get a credit card, even fly on a commercial airplane without providing some positive identification. But to vote? In most places, nothing. You don't even have to know how to read or write - in English or anything else. In Tennessee, we now have motor voting, early voting and mail-in absentee voting (whether you are absent or not). Other states permit Internet voting, and the location of polling booths in county clerks, offices, police stations, even shopping malls. Whatever is easy.

So you can see what's happening. Our polling places are being overwhelmed with voters who have no idea what the issues are, who the candidates are, or even how to read their names! But they are being herded to the polling places in bus loads by candidates who promise more taxpayer-provided goodies.

So please, if you are ignorant of the issues, ignorant of the candidates, and ignorant of their positions on current issues, just do our nation a favor and stay at home on Election Day. I don't want someone as ignorant as you canceling out my vote!

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Ed Wood is a resident of Sparta, TN. His column is published each Wednesday in the Crossville Chronicle.