By Steve Brawner, © 2024 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Anyone who questions why they should vote in this election – or any election – should look to Iowa. And I’m not talking about the Iowa caucuses.

Instead, I’m referring to the end of the first quarter of each University of Iowa Hawkeyes home football game. 

That’s when 70,000 people at Kinnick Stadium – fans, Iowa football players, coaches, the opposing team – turn toward the Stead Family Children’s Hospital overlooking the field and wave in solidarity for several moments to the patients and their families.

The tradition started in 2017 after the hospital was built. It came about as a result of a suggestion someone made on Facebook.

If you’ve never seen the tradition in action, it’s easy to find it online. ESPN did a powerful piece on it seven years ago; if you watch it, have tissue paper handy. One mother talked about her son who was recovering from a difficult cranial surgery. Discouraged at his situation, he looked out the window and said, “At least Saturday’s coming!” And his mood totally changed.

In the videos, it looks like most everyone in the stadium is participating, even though they could take advantage of the break to go to the bathroom or jump to the head of the line to get some nachos. 

Each fan, after all, could reason that the hospital occupants are unlikely to notice if they sit out the wave. What’s the difference between 70,000 people waving and 69,999? 

The problem would occur if 10,000 all felt that way. Pockets of the stadium would look lifeless and still. What if 20,000 chose to skip the wave? Or half?

For the same reason, each individual vote matters in an election.

Arkansas had the lowest voter turnout of any state in the 2020 election at 67% of registered voters. About 1.22 million of the state’s 1.82 million registered voters cast ballots. That sounds pretty good, but it’s just 54.1% of the eligible voting age population, according to the U.S. Election Commission. That percentage also was the lowest of any state. Turnout fell to less than 51% of registered voters in the 2022 nonpresidential election year. In this year’s primaries, it was less than 21%.

True, it’s unlikely that an individual vote will decide most races – particularly the presidential races. 

But sometimes it can, or at least come close. It’s not unheard of for a local race to result in a tie that’s broken by a coin flip. In 2022, State Rep. Steve Magie, D-Conway, won his re-election race by only 10 votes. In the 2000 presidential election, George W. Bush defeated Al Gore by 537 votes in Florida. Surely there were 538 Floridians who preferred Gore but decided voting wasn’t worth their time.

More than a few people believe that low voter turnout is OK, and that only well-informed voters are desirable. Do we want so-called “low information voters” to determine the next leader of the free world?

But just because someone is undereducated about politics doesn’t mean they shouldn’t participate. The single mom working two jobs probably doesn’t follow current events as closely as I do. But her experiences give her a perspective on politics and life that my privileges don’t give me. Plus, a person with a lot of information nevertheless can be misinformed, particularly if the information only comes from one type of biased source.

The democratic process works best when a broad cross-section of the electorate participates. Lower turnouts lead to imbalances that don’t accurately reflect the general population. As one example, in party primaries, partisan voters tend to vote in higher numbers than centrists do, pushing the Republicans to the right and Democrats to the left. The situation encourages politicians and political professionals to win by appealing to and inflaming the party base.

For all of these reasons and more, elections should be as much of a communal activity as possible, not just events appealing to particular market segments. 

Communal activities can be powerful things. Ask the kids at Stead Family Children’s Hospital and the fans at Kinnick Stadium, where everyone waves, and every wave counts the same.

Steve Brawner is a syndicated columnist published in 17 outlets in Arkansas. Email him at brawnersteve@mac.com.