The Fuck You Vote

"City of St. George" separatists are still short of the necessary 18,000 signatures they need for their breakaway from Baton Rouge ballot initiative.  What's interesting is the reason they believe they came very close to their goal.

Lionel Rainey, St. George spokesman, said Tuesday morning that the group would not be submitting its petition by Wednesday, which is the deadline to have the November election.

Last week, the group announced they had 17,076 signatures. It was the first time they had disclosed their signature counts since December.

He said he didn’t have an updated signature count but estimated that at least 200 more signatures had been collected in the past week.

“It was a really good week,” he said, attributing some of the past week’s momentum to a PBS “Frontline” documentary that aired last week on the effort that he says unfairly depicted the movement as racially motivated.

“Absolutely it was positive for us, these people are not prejudice,” he said. “There is no racial or class motive around this, they just want better for their children. And rightfully so, that frustrates them.”

This is a phenomenon the late Greg Peters once described as "the Fuck You vote." In essence, signatories are saying, sure, this might be a stupid, revanchist, and racist initiative.  But "Fuck You" for telling us not to sign it.