Vote

I am finally going to vote and I am quite excited about it. More so because I will vote for the first time in my life. I don't know why people don't want to vote. People say they are disgruntled - whoever comes to power, it does not make any difference to them (more so the reason to vote, I say!!). I think people unconciously subscribe to this disgruntled-ness. Or think it is the right attitude to have. I'm sure most don't have enough direct experience to hold such views.

• To make democracy work, we must be a notion of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.
• * Louis L'Amour

• The average man votes below himself; he votes with half a mind or a hundredth part of one. A man ought to vote with the whole of himself, as he worships or gets married. A man ought to vote with his head and heart, his soul and stomach, his eye for faces and his ear for music; also (when sufficiently provoked) with his hands and feet. If he has ever seen a fine sunset, the crimson colour of it should creep into his vote...The question is not so much whether only a minority of the electorate votes. The point is that only a minority of the voter votes.
  * G. K. Chesterton



• Those who stay away from the election think that one vote will do no good: 'Tis but one step more to think one vote will do no harm.
  * Ralph Waldo Emerson

I will most probably vote LokParitran - their ideology took me some time to understand but quite palpably, it stems from first principles. But the dillema pointed out by my Mom was - By voting for LP, we would reduce the votes of S.Ve.Sekhar (whom we would have voted for otherwise). This just increases the likelihood of Napolean, the DMK candidate winning, as he depends mainly on the lower economic class vote.

The truth will be out on the 11th.