Voting is, at base, an instrumental act. It is not a gesture towards civic engagement nor a calmingly and meditative break from the workday. This is why we care that "every vote is counted," because what a vote is supposed to do is register a citizen's preference, and if that preference is not registered, if the rules are changed somewhere between action and outcome, we recognize that the act's intent has been foiled, and that recourse is necessary. In comments, many of you asked how I could be so dismissive of Floridians who voted for Hillary Clinton. And the answer is, I'm not. I didn't keep their vote from counting. When the Democratic National Committee decided to impose order on an out-of-control primary process by stripping Florida and Michigan of their delegates if they refused to return their primaries to their original dates, there were three individuals who could have restored the franchise to those states. Howard Dean, the Chairman of the DNC, could have changed his mind, or changed his proposed penalty. Even in the face of his intransigence, however, Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama could have simply refused his entreaty to avoid the offending states. A declaration by either that they disagreed with the DNC's decision and would instruct their delegates to alter the rules at the convention and seat Florida and Michigan would have forced all the other candidates to do the same, and the DNC's prohibition would have collapsed. The voters in Florida and Michigan would have attended speeches, and seen ads, and hosted a debate, and been able to make an informed choice That didn't happen. Clinton's campaign manager backing the DNC, said, "We believe Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina play a unique and special role in the nominating process, and we believe the DNC's rules and its calendar provide the necessary structure to respect and honor that role." So Florida and Michigan didn't get their primaries. They didn't get campaigns. They didn't have serious Get Out The Vote efforts. And now, they're being cynically used, the language of democracy revisited and dusted off in service of a power play for additional delegates. Where, rightly or wrongly, the campaigns agreed to deny them a primary, now Clinton's campaign, which in Michigan won because they were the only campaign on the ballot and in Florida won because no one contested their lead, is demanding they be seated. The intervention did not come in time to give Florida and Michigan a full role in the democratic process, only in time to let the Clinton campaign benefit from their essential disenfranchisement.
