Staying Out of the Process

LISNews passes on the word (from LJ) that Molly Raphael will be the next ALA president, and wonders:

Question for ALA members: Why does such a significant majority of members abstain from voting??

Apparently only about 20% of eligible ALA members voted, which is indeed pretty low. I can't answer the question as to why so many members don't vote, though. I did, and I don't even consider myself particularly involved with ALA (MLA is more my focus). I mean, voting was easy--you can do it online!

But if I were to hazard a guess as to the reason for the low turnout, I might say that a lot of people, like me, may not feel that intimately involved with ALA, so might not feel very invested in the election results.

Me, I didn't know much about either of the candidates, and they both seemed perfectly capable, so in a way I really needn't have voted because I didn't especially care who won...whoever's elected will probably do a fine job, so I'm cool either way. Why not let people who actually care do the voting and pick the leaders?

In a way, refraining from voting is just expressing trust in others, who may be more invested and know more about what's going on, to set the agenda. I know the 20% who vote will take care of us!* I don't need to think about it.

This works in all kinds of elections, too, not just ALA.


*Or, since I did in fact vote, you should know that you can trust me to take care of things. Oh yes, you can trust me! Don't mind the sinister cackling.
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