A jury of your peers?  Peeers maybe, but not your peers...

So, you’ve read the pundits’ spin and watched the debates, and now, the fully informed registered voter that you are, you’re getting all excited about voting this year. That’s too bad, because your vote couldn’t possibly be less important to the outcome of this – or any – election.

If you consider yourself “politically aware” and “in touch” with what’s really going on, you’ve probably heard the expression, “Don’t vote! It only encourages them!” You probably laughed it off as a humorous inside joke meant for hip politicos such as yourself. I’m sure you already know more than a few politicians who too well fit this rhetorically sarcastic warning. Hell, you may even understand how academic the whole process is because of the predictability of every race or proposition’s outcome well in advance of the election, so you think your little inside joke is even funnier. That’s nice. It’s good to feel superior to the average, uninformed citizen.

Now, here’s a funny little head’s-up from a real insider who used to do this for a living:

    You don’t know shit from Sununu, peckerhead.

Even if you’re one of those motivated individuals who through personal interest in a single issue, or some deeply anal need to feel like you’re a part of something bigger, have actually worked on a campaign as a sign-hanger or paper-pusher, you couldn’t be further out of the loop if you were Eminem at a taping of The 700 Club. You may be part of the machine, but you’re not part of the process.

The real “process” depends on something much more basic than your lame-ass contribution to the much-ballyhooed democratic process. This dirty little secret of secrets is called 3% + 1, and if you’ve never heard of it before reading this, you’re a part of the 99th percentile of Americans who never will get it—and were never intended to.

The aforementioned “3% + 1” refers to the middle ground where all Democrats and Republicans live before an election. It is the only polling data that matters. It is the only thing they care about and the only reason they still exist. And it’s the one piece of information that must never, ever, be made public if they want to continue their existence. So…

Here now (for what may be the first time outside the closed doors of those infamous smoke-free/smoke-filled back rooms of power) is how the process really works.

Since the 1960’s, Republicrats and Demolicans have relied upon this astoundingly simplistic formula to win any given election:

Approximately 60% of the total population of the United States can vote. The rest (underage, incarcerated or otherwise ineligible) play no part in the process except as media human-interest fodder. Given that eligible 60%, a mere two-thirds (only 40% of all Americans) are actually registered to vote. Of that 40%, and given a tremendous turnout (like in a presidential election year) of, say, 60% of those registered voters, this means that only 24% of the American population actually vote. Some mandate, eh?

And how do these “caring few” vote?

Without giving any policy or character differences a second thought, 8% will automatically vote (D), 8% will automatically vote (R), 2% cannot be philosophically bought off by either half of that same wooden nickel (Libertarians, Greens, Reformers, Noneoftheabovers)… which leaves a paltry 6% of middlegrounders to decide thee and me’s political fate. Oh, joy. Oh, rapture. Oh, shit.

And what does an (R) or a (D) have to do to win any election? All any of these wonks have to do is win just 3% + 1 of that utterly clueless middle ground. Period. End of story. Game over.

Just 3% + 1. That’s why the R’s and D’s speak so slowly and end up saying absolutely nothing substantive. Wouldn’t want to offend any of God’s slower children who’ll be voting for one of us because we “looked nice” on TV, now would we?

And who are these great unwashed of the muddle-brained middle? Ever been denied jury duty because you were too smart or too informed (they weeded you out for a particular bumper sticker or a propensity to watch FOX News or C-SPAN) to be accepted by either the defense or the prosecution? Well then, congratulations, my friends! Let me be the first to welcome y’all to the defendant’s chair of the American electoral process!

Remember how stupid those people who were chosen for that jury from which you were excused looked? Good, because that Norman Rockwell painting of ineptitude and inbreeding constitutes the same group of adult diaper-wearing sister-fuckers who will be deciding which assholes will be ruling over every facet of your life from here on out.

Just 3% + 1. And you thought that “it only encourages them” line was referring to the politicians.

Silly you, but I think you’ll do just fine on jury duty.