Voting with Your Conscious

It’s a mid term election.  There is, as usual, a Democrat and a Republican, neck and neck, and there are three Independent candidates with no chance.  I was told by a friend on Facebook last night that “a vote for an Independent is a vote for a Republican.”  If we continue to think this way, I believe, we will be forever stuck in this horrible two party system.  George Washington said “Beware of political parties, they will be your demise.”  See more about this here.

Martha Coakley/Steve Kerrigan running on the Democratic ticket.
Charles D. Baker/Karyn Polito  running on the Republican ticket.
Evan Falchuk/Angus Jennings   running on the United Independent Party.
Jeffrey McCormick/Tracy Post  running as Independents.
Scott Lively/Shelly Saunders running as Independents. They are crazy independents, I might add, who believe some whacky downright homophobic and anti-woman stuff.  Google them for a good laugh.  Seriously?

Falchuk is an interesting Independent.  He is affiliated with the United Independent Party. If Falchuk achieves more than 3 percent of the vote, the United Independent Party will gain recognition in Massachusetts. More than half of registered voters in Massachusetts are not affiliated with the Republican or Democratic parties.

Falchuk addresses the two-party problem in Massachusetts, but it can easily be applied across the country, in this article.

Most of my friends and colleagues probably think I would be all over having our first women elected to Governor (we have had a woman Governor, Jane Swift, but she was not elected, she was acting Governor when Paul Cellucci left to work for the Bush administration).  However, I don’t agree with Ms Coakley on a few issues that are important to me. And I’m continually concerned about voting for people with so much privilege that they can’t see the reality of so many people’s lives.

I owe my vote to Alice Paul and Lucy Burns, who starved themselves for the right to vote.  I doubt they would be pleased if I voted for a candidate because I don’t want a Republican to win, not because I believe in their views.  We need more of us to take a stand for a third party system and vote with our conscious not with a myth that pervades our democracy.

Alice Paul, author of the Equal Rights Amendment, and her friend, Lucy Burns.