If democracy means anything to you--vicariously, intellectually, irrationally--you will know that the purpose of voting is never, and has never been, simply to elect.
Voting is participation, and as such is the soul of democracy. It exposes, in its almost pure symbolism, the difference between ends and means. Ends--the candidate chosen--are at best locally determined benchmarks. Means--the way the choice is made--inform not simply the cost of change but the entire range of what we as a society consider possible.
Maryanthe E. Malliaris '01 is a mathematics concentrator in Lowell House. Her column appears on alternate Mondays.
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