Opinion: Election day, 2014, California: Reasons to vote

Political consultants know who you are. Candidates know who you are. Every election season, they buy lists from the county registrar that include not just the names and party affiliations of registered voters, but also when they voted – which elections they turned out for, which they skipped. They don’t know who you voted for, or whether you went all the way down the ballot to the judicial candidates, but they know you voted. Or didn’t. They know when you changed your party affiliation.

Creepy? Maybe just a little. But for voters the fact that the information is out there can also be empowering, if they want it to be.

If the candidate knows you vote in every local election, he or she will be coming to your door during campaign season and will at least go through the motions of asking your opinion.

If the candidate is elected and you call with a problem or a question, there’s a pretty good chance the staff will look up whether you’re a regular voter. They’re not supposed to. But they will. They want to know: Do you matter? If they flub your service request, will that mean they’ll lose a vote at reelection time? Or are you just one of the teeming millions who can’t be bothered with elections?

In an era of huge political fundraising and pathetic voter turnout, when more dollars are raised than votes cast, each vote becomes golden. Each vote makes a statement: Your message, bought with millions from big money donors, swayed me. Or didn’t.

The lower the turnout, the more powerful each vote. Votes from one high-turnout neighborhood can sway an election and, importantly, official action. Just ask the voters of Westchester, who last year made it quite clear that they would make their ballot box decision for mayor of Los Angeles based on the candidates’ position on whether to move Los Angeles International Airport’s north runway closer to residences (it probably had little to do with the need to demolish the In-N-Out Burger, but you never know). Mayoral candidate Eric Garcetti listened. He promised. He won – because there were too few other votes to counteract Westchester’s power. Now, you can expect ponderous studies, rather than construction, to last until sometime after his reelection campaign in three years.

Voting is a little like playing the lottery. The greater the number of players, the bigger the prize – but the less chance you have to win it because there are more hands in the game. When the pot is small, though, why bother? Because with a tiny number of players your odds jump.

In this election, the pot is small even though the stakes are high. The power of each vote is enhanced. Any new county supervisor, Assembly member or anyone else who gets elected today will know you voted, and will want to keep that vote in two years or four.

Of course, voting is also very unlike a lottery. It costs nothing but a stamp or a trip to your polling place. It is a self-fulfilling statement of power, whether or not your candidate wins – because all the winner will know is that you are a voter. It is democracy’s membership ticket. It fires a shot across the bow of those politicians and their consultants who care more about dollars than votes, because dollars are useless, after all, unless they can buy votes.

It’s Nov. 4. Election day. Be counted. Vote.

Follow me on Twitter @RGreene2.