COUNTERPOINT

Ads are more 'creepy' than voting

Let's cut to the chase with Stephen Carter's commentary on America Votes ("Vote postcards are creepy — and just wrong," Nov. 7).

For a man whose biography is found on Wikipedia, what's creepy is that he finds the existence of public information on whether or not he voted creepy. Everyone knows that when the voter turnout is large, Democrats win, and when it's low, Republicans win. Everything else is smoke and mirrors, although Carter does raise a few amusing tidbits.

America Votes is clearly a left-wing group doing what it does to promote Democrats. There's nothing wrong with that. If you want creepy, how about so much money in politics that the TV stations are saturated and that the campaign committees have more money than they can spend? It makes me wonder whether Sam Alito is working for the Republicans or the TV networks.

Carter raises an interesting point about what is mandatory and what is not. It leaves me in a quandary. In the realm of citizenship, paying taxes is mandatory. So is obeying the law, and, at one time, so was registering for the draft. Mandatory voting would be creepy, but it might make for more Democratic victories, while on the other hand, it might bring out hordes of clueless "keep yer govmint hands off my Medicare"-type voters, and the welfare of the nation might be better served if they stayed home.

Carter decries America Vote's attempt to "make up our minds for us." What does he think the aforementioned onslaught of political advertising is meant to do? Then he embarks on a self-referential contradiction of gargantuan proportions. He suggests that people should not vote at all because doing so involves them in "one of the sleaziest and most degrading aspects of American life." What? Is he saying that if nobody votes, then nobody will be elected? We all know that's silly.

Perhaps Carter should indeed occupy himself with a good book on Election Day, but the rest of us need merely be reminded that for evil to triumph, it is enough for good people to do nothing.

The writer, of New Hope, is a retired mathematics instructor.