We know that POME readers are all wonderful people who would never do anything terrible like forget/purposefully avoid the 2014 midterm elections. Our readers are all benevolent, kind, beautiful people with a strong sense of civic duty. So we know you guys would never skip out on an election taking place during a year where so many critical decisions were up in the air (like affordable healthcare, reproductive justice, racial discrimination, and LGBT civil rights, among others).
You’re probably sitting there feeling as confused as we are about what went down last week. How could so many of our peers skip out on voting this time, when so much shit that directly affects us was in the mix? Maybe your initial reaction was a lot like ours — anger, scorn, bewilderment.
But don’t be too mad at those jagweeds. They had a lot going on this election, okay? I mean, maybe we should back the hell off. When approached, here are a few reasons they couldn’t make it out to the polls last month / on Tuesday:
- Hard to squeeze in time to vote between marathoning all seven seasons of Gilmore Girls, now that it’s on Netflix
- “Republican, Democrat, who cares? They’re all secretly reptile people out to overthrow the human race anyway.”
- Cat fell asleep on lap for entirety of early voting, didn’t want to disturb him
- Waved at Wendy Davis while standing in line at the HEB checkout but she didn’t wave back
- Foot stuck in bear trap, couldn’t gnaw leg off in time to get to the polls
- Heard about increased voter turnout; nervous around crowds
- Confused about how to work complex dial-spinning mechanism on voting machines
- Texas Secretary of State’s office wouldn’t accept paper airplanes as method of delivery for mail-in ballot application
- “It’s not about voting, it’s about ethics in games journalism.”
- Forgot how Google worked for a few weeks
- Refused due to anarchist co-op’s moratorium on both enthusiasm and voting
- Couldn’t read “Yo Voté” stickers
- Too busy working on Halloween costume; recovering from Halloween hangover
- Show of protest against cheesy “Rock the Vote” youtube videos
- Couldn’t differentiate between candidates who support a wide range of progressive issues and candidates who believe Duck Dynasty is the mouthpiece for a higher power
- Enjoys disappointment
- Anxious about going to polls/being around that many old people in one place
- Was one of the 600,000 registered Texas voters unable to vote due to blatant disenfranchisement via new voter ID law