We’ve all seen them, those click-bait ads that promise if we do just ONE simple or weird thing, we can transform ourselves for the better. Well, here’s one thing we can do to help change our world:
If you live in a state like North Dakota or Georgia or Kansas, voting might not be simple. It might be weird or even difficult. But please vote. Remember if anyone tells you that can’t vote, you are still entitled to a provisional ballot. Demand one and a receipt for it and vote. Democracy only works when we, the people, are willing to rule and to remind our representatives that we will take the lead.
If you’re thinking about not voting, please think again.
To the under-thirty crowd: check out former president Obama’s PSA. Prove wrong everyone who says you’re apathetic, that you don’t care enough to be aware of what’s going on or to cast a ballot. I don’t think that’s true of your generation. I think you do care and want to make a difference. Perhaps some of you don’t think your vote can bring about change, but it can. Voting is an act that is at once a right, a privilege, and a responsibility. Take advantage of living in a country where you get to vote. Vote now so you can retain that right.
To everyone: If you think you can’t lose the right to vote, think again.1 Thousands and thousands of people are being disenfranchised by voter suppression laws and regulations. Vote for the American Indians in North Dakota; vote for the tens of thousands of voters being denied a ballot in Georgia because there’s an extra space between their names. Vote for the immigrants in Garden City, Kansas, where the only polling place has been moved out of town, a mile away from the nearest bus stop. Vote to help ensure every eligible citizen gets to cast a ballot.
MomsRising Postcard
Vote because families are still separated, because children have forgotten their parents, because the president wants to reinstate this policy of separating even nursing infants from their parents,2 a policy that causes life-lasting trauma and because he now has a Supreme Court that will support this cruelty. Vote because children of both immigrants and citizens need protection.
Vote because women have the right to control their lives and destinies and need access to trustworthy health care, to birth control, and to safe abortions. Vote because we all need access to quality health care and we won’t get it from this Congress.3 Vote because our judiciary is becoming dangerously unbalanced. Vote to restore judges who represent the majority of people, not the fringes.
ACLU Postcard
Vote because every child needs an education in a school without guns and with decently paid, dedicated, capable teachers. Vote because children die every day from a gun, because adults are shot every day as well. According to the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, eight children die each day from gun violence; ninety-six people of all ages are killed by a gun — each day. And then there are the thousands (over fourteen thousand children; close to ninety thousand people total) who are shot every year but survive to live with the trauma and the often lasting disabilities and the expenses of having been shot.4 There was an op-ed piece in the Washington Post about how people are afraid to make their opinions known to others because our national discourse has become so uncivil, volatile, and threatening that speaking up can be dangerous.5 I understand that fear — in fact, I share it. But voting provides us a powerful means of participating in the conversation, of having our say safely, of making our voice be heard.
If you’re thinking about not voting, think again. Many of our recent elections have been close; your votes truly can turn a tide. Don’t let anyone say you didn’t put out the effort and missed your chance to have your say; don’t let others decide your fate.
