The Power of One

This is sort of a continuation of my last post and more to drive home the importance of voting. I dislike the mentality that someone would think their vote doesn't matter. Every vote counts, every single ballot that has a checkmark on it matters. 40% of Canada didn't vote in 2004, that's almost 12.8 million Canadians didn't vote someone to represent them in Ottawa. Think how different things could have been if those millions of people had voted, it could have completely flipped the government around and things could have been completely different from what they are today. To those of you that think one vote doesn't matter think about this. In 2004 Anne McLellan won by just one vote, of course a recount later on showed she won by 12 votes. But think about that...12 more people could have changed results in that riding. Some votes come entirely way closer than anyone would possibly think. That one vote could have way more of an effect than one would think, it could be the difference between a conservative majority or actually keeping them in check. It could mean a chink in the Conservative bastion that is Western Canada, showing that not all Albertans are money hungry power mongers. And if that's not enough there's always the fact that for every vote a party gets, it recieves $1.75 in federal funding. Sure it may not seem like much but multiply that by say...the 500,000 votes Green got in 2004 and that's about $875000 to further their efforts in the next election. So if your vote doesn't matter now it may help make a difference to better establish the party for the next election. Gods people just get out there and vote!

-Matt