quotations about voting
The best way to protect the integrity of elections is to encourage more qualified people to vote.
OAMSHRI AMARASINGHAM
"Maine House rejects requiring voters to present photo IDs", Portland Press Herald, April 25, 2017
There ain't any finer folks living than a Republican that votes the Democratic ticket.
WILL ROGERS
attributed, Will Rogers Speaks
The citizen who never votes probably doesn't want to feel responsible for what goes on in Washington.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes
Ballot boxes in America are more often starved than stuffed.
E. C. MCKENZIE
14,000 Quips and Quotes
One of the nuisances of the ballot is that when the oracle has spoken you never know what it means.
LORD SALISBURY
attributed, Little Oxford Dictionary of Quotations
Real men vote ... because not bothering to vote reveals a kind of moral lethargy, an unforgivable passivity, and an adolescent nihilism.
TONY PARSONS
"Voting is the most important thing a man can do", GQ, April 24, 2017
Why would somebody not want to make the voting rights restoration process easier? It infuriated me. It's basically saying there's a whole class of people who we want to prevent from participating. We need to progress, we need to move on -- everybody needs the right to vote and to be able to participate in our elections.
MANTELL STEVENS
"Fighting Kentucky's Policy of Lifetime Disenfranchisement", Truth Out, April 25, 2017
The massive, frustrated energies of a mainly young, disillusioned electorate that has long since abandoned the idea that we all have a duty to vote. This is like being told you have a duty to buy a new car, but you have to choose immediately between a Ford and a Chevy.
HUNTER S. THOMPSON
Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72
I encounter many undecided voters, mostly younger people, who are totally apathetic to the general elections. There are not even interested in a protest vote. "Voting is overrated," they tell me. What's the point? Like a casino, the game is rigged against you, always. The house always wins.
OYUNGA PALA
"How to deal with recurring case of 'electile dysfunction'", SDE Entertainment News, April 24, 2017
The chief difficulty of cutting down the expenses of government is that so many of the expenses can vote.
EVAN ESAR
20,000 Quips & Quotes
Voting is the cornerstone of democracy, protected by more constitutional amendments than any other right.
OAMSHRI AMARASINGHAM
"Maine House rejects requiring voters to present photo IDs", Portland Press Herald, April 25, 2017
When fewer votes are cast, every vote counts more.
ALEX MACON
"Dallas Has the Worst Voters in the Entire Country", D Magazine, April 25, 2017
A great many of our men in business rather plume themselves upon being good citizens if they even vote; yet voting is the very least of their duties.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT
speech in Buffalo, New York, "The Duties of American Citizenship", January 26, 1883
Back then, before it became clear that democracy was best served by a drunken electorate, the bars in New York City were required to close on Election Day.
LAWRENCE BLOCK
You Could Call It Murder
The difference between a Democracy and a Dictatorship is that in a Democracy you vote first and take orders later; in a Dictatorship you don't have to waste your time voting.
CHARLES BUKOWSKI
Erections, Ejaculations, Exhibitions and Tales of Ordinary Madness
I have an idea about voting, how about on every ballot we include "None of the above". People may laugh at that, but what that is, it is a vote of no confidence in your government and I'm willing to bet that in some elections, 'None of the Above' would win. Imagine if you won the election but lost to 'None of the Above'. Wouldn't that make you re-think your positions?
JESSE VENTURA
"All Elections Make a Difference", Algona Upper Des Moines
The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men.
LYNDON B. JOHNSON
statement upon signing the Voting Rights Act of 1965
If you are bored and disgusted by politics and don't bother to vote, you are in effect voting for the entrenched Establishments of the two major parties, who please rest assured are not dumb, and who are keenly aware that it is in their interests to keep you disgusted and bored and cynical and to give you every possible reason to stay at home doing one-hitters and watching MTV on primary day. By all means stay home if you want, but don't bullshit yourself that you're not voting. In reality, there is no such thing as not voting: you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some Diehard's vote.
DAVID FOSTER WALLACE
Up, Simba!
Voter education shouldn't just cover when and how to vote, but why.
ALEX MACON
"Dallas Has the Worst Voters in the Entire Country", D Magazine, April 25, 2017
I don't think that there's substantiated evidence that shows that voter fraud is such a rampant problem that we have to put in place measures that people have to pass in order to exercise that constitutional free right. Voting should be -- and is required to be -- a right that is unencumbered. That does not have tests that people must pass.... Anything put in place to restrict that right, or to make it more difficult for people to exercise it, should be outlawed, and should not be allowed.
CLAY AIKEN
Salon, February 10, 2014