[quote=mdk]I can't just stick my head in a booth for five minutes every year and pretend that makes me a good, empowered citizen.
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Fair enough. But you can vote for the person who you think will either support your views the most or you think will screw you over the least. You want more gun control? Vote for whoever supports that. You feel abortion should be legal in all 50 states? Vote for whoever supports that. And so on so forth. As for the people around you, yeah, you can affect local decisions easily. To affect federal decisions, however little, you need to vote.