In Defense of the Undecided Voter

Unfortunately, this post could have been a little timelier. This really should have gone out a couple of weeks ago rather than the day of the election, but it’s a little late for that now. I’ve been spending a lot of time watch the news lately. And a lot of television overall. As you’ve probably seen, there is a lot of derision shoveled onto the undecided voter, those who are pressured to pick between the two major parties, for the most part, although it extends to those who simply haven’t made up their minds regardless. Even independent blog that I read have mentioned how they flat out despise people who haven’t made up their minds.

An interesting story on CNN last week involved Dr. Sanjay Gupta discussing what is physically going on in the brain of the undecided voter. For many of those who remain undecided, there is a larger threshold for gathering evidence before a decision is made. Eventually, a tipping point is reached and a decision gets made.

Now, imagine a situation where evidence seems to get poured into the brain. However, very little of this information actually addresses real issues or problem and intended more to market and tug at heart string rather than to truly inform the voters. In addition, assume that much this information is immediately contradicted, or demonstrated to be flat out false.

Think of the brain like a pitcher of water, but currently empty. You pour water into the pitcher a cup at a time. This is the information used to make a decision. Eventually, the pitcher will be full and needs to be poured out, signifying a decision being made. However, start putting water in that pitcher a cup at a time, but for every cup you pour in, you put an empty cup in the pitcher and take six ounces out. It take a lot longer to fill up this pitcher.

Okay, maybe that wasn’t the best analogy, but you should get the idea. When most of what keeps going out over the wire is gaffes, attacks, or things that are easily proven false or immediately contradicted, it’s difficult to glean the real information on which to base a truly informed decision. There’s a lot of mocking of the undecided voter, especially at this late date, complaining that the major party candidates couldn’t be more different, so make up your damn minds already. What’s interesting is how most of the ones I've seen and read who decided on their candidate early also seem to be more interested in party politics, and have demonstrated that they will simply vote along party line, more interested in keeping the infighting going on than actually addressing the issues. While people claim that independent and undecided voters are low information voters (sometimes being flat out called stupid), is it possible that the undecided voter remains undecided because they want to ensure they make an informed decision with real information? As such, is the undecided voter really the more responsible voter? When the major parties seem to more interested in attacking each other and provide contradictory and veiled information on their proposed policies, or are proposing policies that the president can’t pass and is actually the responsibility of Congress like tax laws, is really the undecided voter who sees through this and recognizes the truth?