I actually cast my Johnson County, Iowa absentee ballot a couple months ago. But I really don't know why I went to all the trouble of sending back numerous forms and envelopes-within-envelopes in order to cast my vote. How am I to know whether my ballot even got there? Given all the hassle, why did I vote? Not because "every vote counts." Ironically enough, everyone was saying that around the time of the 2000 Florida election controversy, but I recall the CNN pundits at the time being able to find only one U.S. historical example where the margin of victory was a single vote-a nonpartisan county comptroller's race in some squared-off state. If an election contest did come down to a single vote, there would be recount after recount and your vote still wouldn't count.

I'm not motivated to vote by a feeling that democratic participation would somehow enable me-through reason-to reach the zenith of my human capacities. Some time ago my instincts relegated the autonomous moral agent rattling around within me to the backseat, where it occasionally unleashes uncaused whines that cause it to get smacked.

I'm not motivated to vote by a feeling that the two-party system offers voters substantially different alternatives from which to choose. The only member of Iowa's Congressional delegation to vote against war with Iraq was a Republican. It used to be because smart, educated people vote. People who know me well might say it's so I can claim a moral right to complain about national politics. But most people would assume that I vote anyway.

During my first election in 2000 I got the biggest kick out of telling my conservative archrivals and my father that I'd cancelled out their votes for Bush and that my vote was more important because I was in a "battleground state." Then this complete twerp at my school informed me that he'd negated my vote and I got really pissed. Democratic equality sounds nice but is really annoying in practice. It's not worth taking sides; using TV talking head speak to talk about the "horse race" is much more fulfilling.

The only thing now that keeps me voting are those colorful Republicans whom the Democratic party advertisements remind me I hate during campaign seasons. As a member of the apathetic American voting masses I receive condescending letters and emails from the various liberal organizations I belong to telling me things like, "Republican Congressmen Jim Leach was seen playing golf at a country club as part of a foursome with Republican House Leaders Tom DeLay, Dick Armey and Bob Barr. They were later seen drinking cocktails at the clubhouse." After I've been reminded of a few of these fellows' most recent anti-immigrant or anti-gay slurs, I'm ready to reach for my pitchfork and/or #2 pencil.

But even with my panties sufficiently twisted, voting by absentee does not provide me the proper release. It's really hard to be resolutely angry as you trek back and forth to the post office to get stamps from a coin-operated machine and mail various forms. The act itself, a careful, within-the-box etching performed with an emasculating miniature-golf-scorecard pencil, just doesn't do it for me. And it's patently unjust that afterwards I have to pamper my little manila-enveloped bundle of malice with dainty creases and adhesive-licking.

Since voting is so unsatisfying, I'd like to propose a compromise that would save politicians a lot of time and the voters the trouble of having to listen to never-ending political advertisements: if the Republican leaders listed above would join Dick Army in leaving politics and going back to spending some time with the families they're always talking about, I and at least 40 of my liberal acquaintances-and I'd bet probably millions of other liberals nationwide-would de-register to vote. Heck, promise that Alan Keyes never comes to the Iowa Caucuses anymore and I'll start up the nationwide effort to realize this dream. Or maybe we could work out a mutual disarmament strategy: Streisand for DeLay? Rosie for Charlton Heston?

Assuming I stay registered to vote, you'll still be able to catch me at the caucuses. Because each Democratic precinct votes for delegates rather than directly for the candidates, if your first choice doesn't get enough votes then you have to shimmy across the high school cafeteria to another candidate's camp. People shout at you and offer you cookies for joining them. It's like Red Rover except the average age is 65.

Democracy doesn't get any better than the Iowa Caucuses: the living embodiment of the New England town hall meeting brought into the 21st century with crockpots chock-full of BBQ-smothered Cocktail Smoky sausages. Or, as my friends and I fantasized, you could try to sabotage the Republicans by helping out the Gary Bauers in their bids for the party nomination, demanding that the Republican platform endorse creation science or infiltrating the upper echelons of the county-level Party and orchestrating bumper sticker "misprints" on a hitherto unseen scale. Alas, after two years, disenchantment has displaced all such idealistic ambitions of my youth. I desperately need my vote rocked.