Political scribe opts to join the non-voting majority

Joe Mathews is sitting this one out, he writes in a piece called Your Vote Doesn't Count at Zocalo's website.

I am a late guest at California’s non-voter party. I write about government and politics for a living, and yearn to believe that elections matter. I enjoy the ritual of voting. I come from a patriotic family with a history of military service. And voting has never felt like a chore. The three-block walk from my apartment to my local Los Angeles polling place, the Westside Jewish Community Center on Olympic Boulevard, is delightful.

But casting a ballot in such a broken system has come to feel like putting money in a bank you know will fail. In the past, I used to talk California non-voters (including some relatives) into voting. But in recent years, I found that my explanations grew longer and more tortured, full of guesses about the indirect effects of sending a particular political message. This year, I found I couldn’t answer a basic question: what is there to vote for?

But… but… but…. you want to protest that there are a few significant choices on the ballot.