They're not voting because...
- Weighing the costs
In any collaboration, there will be aspects one doesn't like and aspects one does. There will be opportunities to change the aspects one doesn't like, but one will have to accept some of them out of necessity. One must weigh all of these factors before deciding how to spend one's time -- any endeavor has opportunity costs.
Do you have the time to really understand the far-reaching complications of the initiatives on the ballot before you? Do you have a reliable way to obtain information about them?
Would you vote in a plurality election, despite its known paradoxes (verses other voting methods)?
Do you normally get so excited about persons you've never met?
Would you have voted in Nazi Germany? Would voting against Hitler nevertheless help legitimize the system in which he rose to power?
Would you be able to make a better example of your life by focusing on your discourse with family, neighbors, and coworkers?
-Carl
written 22nd Apr 2005