The wasted vote

I’ve written about this in elections past, but it bears saying again (and again). That’s the idea of the “wasted vote.”

The idea is implicit in the surveys, though it has been openly articulated by some of the candidates. The wise vote, the idea goes, is the one that goes to those who are likely to win. How do we know that they are likely to win?

Because they appear consistently in the surveys. They’re the ones occupying the higher rungs of the ladder. The only gray area where you may take a chance and still remain wise is, in the case of the senatorial candidates, the ones from 10 to 12. You can vote for anyone of them and if they win, fine, if they don’t, well, ganyan  lang  talaga  ang  buhay, win some, lose some.

Not voting this way is just wasting your vote. You vote for someone you think will do well by this country but is way down there in the surveys and you waste your vote. You vote for someone you trust but who seems to have little chance of becoming senator or congressman or mayor, and you waste your vote.

Is that wise?

No. That’s stupid.

In fact, the opposite is true. In every respect.

To begin with, the equation in elections is simple: You vote for a candidate, he wins; you do not vote for a candidate, he loses. At the end of the day, surveys are not counted, votes are. Arguably, surveys do contain a grain of truth in them, but only a grain. There is no finality to it, there is no inevitability to it. The respondents can always change their minds.  You  can always change your mind. You can always change the world. The longest journey begins with the first step. The most impossible victory begins with the first vote.

What is the wise vote? It is the vote you give that is true to the vote.

It is the recognition of what a vote is. It is the appreciation of what a vote can do. The vote is the awesome power you have in your hands to change things. The vote is the boundless power you have in your hands to shape things. It does not exist outside of you, it is not a power that someone holds over you, it is not like a storm or an earthquake or a force of nature you cannot control. You own it, you control it, you wield it. The only thing worse than being powerless, as I keep saying, is having the power and not knowing you do.

The result of an election is not, like fate or destiny, something that is foreordained, that will happen whatever you do, that is a tragedy driving inexorably to its end. It is a story that is yours to tell, it is a story that is yours to end. You vote for a candidate, he wins; you do not, he does not.

What is the wasted vote? It is the vote you give the frontrunners simply because they are the frontrunners. Or so the surveys tell you. It is the vote you do not give to Jun Magsaysay and Risa Hontiveros because they are number 13 or thereabouts and they could lose, sayang lang. It is the vote you do not give Teddy Casiño because he is somewhere out there, too far off to be glimpsed, he probably won’t make the bus,  sayang  lang. It is the vote you do not give the Kapatiran candidates and Eddie Villanueva and Edward Hagedorn and Dick Gordon and everybody else you think should be there but think won’t be there,  sayang  lang.

That is the truly wasteful thing. In fact, sayang lang, bumoto  ka  pa.

What is the wise vote? It is the vote that you give that is true to the nation.

It is voting for someone who has a record of being reasonable and honest, has the courage of his convictions, has a vision for the country and can offer a way to get there. However he is reviled for being deluded, however he is laughed at for daring to move mountains. He may lose in the elections, and the country may lose by his losing in the elections, but the country gains by your voting for him. It is a vote born of conscience, it is a vote born of principle, it is a vote given freely. The nation is all the better for it, the nation is at least none the worse for it.

Which is what the wasted vote is—the nation is all the worse for it. It is the vote you give a known crook, a known cheat, a known murderer, simply because you think they are likely to win. It is the vote you give someone simply because he or she has been in the Senate before notwithstanding all that he or she did was to make you poorer, to make life more miserable for you. It is the vote you give someone simply because he or she is related to someone even if all that someone did was to rob you and laugh in your face when you complained.

That is the wasted vote, the vote you give someone you know will oppress you and complain about afterward for oppressing you. It is the vote you give someone you do not trust, you do not believe in, only to complain afterward that congressmen are corrupt, senators are devious, governors and mayors practice dynastic politics and patronage politics and pa-pogi politics. That’s not just the wasted vote, that is the masochistic vote.

What is the wise vote? It is the vote that you give that is true to yourself.

Like an impeachment trial, an election doesn’t just open candidates to judgment, it opens voters to judgment. It isn’t just the candidates who are on trial, you are too. An election is a test of character, a test of mettle. You vote for someone because you believe in him, and no matter what the outcome is he wins, the nation wins, you win.

What is the wasted vote? It is the vote you give someone because you think everybody else is voting for him, you don’t want to be laughed at, you don’t want to be the odd-man out, you don’t want to be thought of as stupid. Which is exactly what that makes you. Which is exactly what you are. You vote that way, the deserving candidate loses, the nation loses, you lose.

Today is Election Day.

Don’t waste your vote.