Everybody wants to know things before they happen. The question of who will win the White House in 2012 is no exception, and it’s reaching fever pitch. The need to know is causing a frenzy of projections, predictions and punditry. We are very much concerned with who the winner of the election will be, not so much the loser. But at what point do these predictions become predispositions? When do we abandon the ideal candidate in favor of the presupposed winner?

If you noticed, there were a lot of words with the “pre-” prefix. That’s because, as obvious as it sounds, the election hasn’t happened yet. Nobody knows who the winner will be, and any guess at this point, or even through most of Election Day, is just a guess. Unfortunately, sometimes the louder guesses drown out the legitimate options. Candidates like Libertarian Gary Johnson, the Green Party’s Jill Stein, and others with differing ideals from the prescribed “norm” are thrust to the sidelines in exchange for the latest polling data out of the key battleground state of Ohio.

When we try to predict winners, we inevitably go through a process of elimination to reach what is the seemingly obvious conclusion. The lesser-known candidates are ruled out almost immediately, and those without funding are taken out of the race even faster. This methodology takes out vital and existing voices that contribute to the health of the American polity. Too often we value the quantity of the candidate over the quality. We only see the candidates that media companies think are the relevant ones, and only concern ourselves with the direction of the two major parties. For too many, voting becomes an evaluation of campaigns instead of ideologies and faces instead of futures. Who can wear the mask better?

At this point, the race for the White House is too close to call for any candidate. This unpredictability was also predicted long before Mitt Romney was even the GOP nominee. But regardless of who wins Ohio, Pennsylvania or Wisconsin, there are still some key predictors for the next four years. Troops will continue to be stationed in Afghanistan and around the world, and don’t think incredibly wasteful spending will cease to exist if your man wins the White House. There will still be deficits to leave for those of us now growing up to take care of, and as long as there are borders, there will be illegal aliens. The solutions that have been offered to the American public by one candidate to fix the problems of the past decade are still not working, and there is no real difference in the “solutions” offered by the other candidate. Over the next four years the problems will not be fixed, nor will their “solutions.”

The observer effect in science means that the act of observing something changes what that something does. In elections, the observer effect can change the observer. We are being changed by our constant tuning into the latest election headlines. We allow our observations to be skewed by the lens of the very glasses that help us see. The media that introduces us to the candidates and predicts the winners also picks the winners. Take off the blinders for a minute. When we begin to get caught up in the game ourselves and adopt the role of pundit over electorate, we sacrifice our basic right as free men and women. We need more voices in our democracy so much more so than predictions. They are out there if you listen.

Dylan is a freshman in Business. He can be reached at [email protected].