Do All Votes Matter?

Editor’s Note: The Last Redoubt addresses the concept about all votes versus legal votes.

I came across the below image recently when at an office where most were congratulating themselves that Biden “won”:

Mostly my reaction was to roll my eyes and keep going, until the thought crossed my mind much later.

Sure, the dialectic – and an accurate – response is “ballots aren’t votes” – that just because I or anyone else fills in five thousand ballots means that they are legitimate and should be counted. Incidentally, this also addresses the following:

This of course conflates two different counts. There is a unifiying principle: to have a fair, transparent, and complete count of legitimate ballots. If the AZ counts are being done openly, then indeed, finish the count before conceding.

But the PA and Detroit counts are anything but open. Larry Correia’s article, which as I recall failed to mention that the DA in PA overseeing the count had sworn Trump would not win – another red flag – is outstanding.

Of course the first image, and similar ones, embody another point. “Y’all are still racist and bad.”

But it’s all water under the bridge, because we know that it’s conflation, bullshit, and arguing “not every ballot is a vote” while utterly true and correct won’t get them where it counts in a reeply. They’ll deny and obfuscate the mean girls shit until the cows come home.

Instead, I had another thought : Not every vote matters.

Why should I give a fuck what someone in Tokyo who is not a US citizen nor an American thinks about what I do on any given day, or what I should do? They have almost no skin in the game for my life.

The only people who’s votes should count are those of people who will lose as a matter of espousing a set of policies if it doesn’t work out. Who have a long term investment in the well being of where they live and their neighbors, because they aren’t transients with a home or homeland to go back to. I’d even go as far as saying immigrants need several generations to be allowed to vote in national elections – communities and states can decide what is sufficient show of investment to demonstrate loyalty.

By this, I don’t mean people who will lose future welfare income taken and produced by someone else. Those people won’t have to work more to produce more. They are not taking the risk.

So no – not only does not every ballot represent a vote – but not every vote matters – only the votes with standing do. You know the left believes this in some way, shape, or form, or wants us to believe they do, as otherwise, why would russians participating in the electoral process be interference?

Sounds like it should be a meme.

I’ve believed this for some time, after considering that we no longer require someone to be a landowner to vote, but instead have effective universal suffrage for adults. No-one has to sacrifice anything to vote, and all too few risk losing anything of what they ask for. Which brings me to what inspired me to post in the first place – another post I saw at Arkhaven:

Seeing this, it suddenly occured to me to ask, for the first time, were poll taxes actually bad? I know what we were taught – I haven’t yet changed my mind yet as to considering it a bad thing – but not having considered it for decades, I have asked myself the question, realized that it was an unquestioned assumption, and will take a deeper look at it.

Maybe it is still bad, but I have a far greater appreciation for the need for sacrifice, and skin in the game, to get a privilege or membership. We need something.

No need to guess on how any attempt to require any kind of “net taxpayer” or property requirement will be taken.