“If I hear anybody saying their vote does not matter, that it doesn't matter who we elect—read up on your history,” stated former president Barack Obama in September 2016, as he faced the crowds at his final Congressional Black Caucus gala. According to the United States Election Project, in that year only 56.9 percent of voting age Americans casted their vote for president, an election that landed Americans with Donald Trump.
Why? With statistics that high, those eligible voters could have created a different future for the United States.
“So many people have marched and fought and have struggled for [the right to vote], and our success as a country, if we stood for anything, has been the idea that collectively we can govern ourselves and, on our better days, we can do that. We can’t do that if our fellow citizens sit home,” Tim Burns, current candidate for Wisconsin supreme court, told a group of students at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse earlier this month.
“To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain,” author Louis L'Amour once reminded the American public.
“Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves and the only way they could do this is by not voting,” President Franklin D. Roosevelt commented many years ago.
It’s as if these great men were screaming at us to use our right that many have fought for prior to our generation. Lives have been lost for our ability to control our own government and to have a say in it, and people sit at home and forget when the election was even supposed to occur.
How is that fair to those who have fought for future generation to be able to do something about their government? It’s an insult to those lives that were faced with one of the hardest struggles in American history, to give Americans freedom to give their opinions and decide the fate of their country.
Americans are not obligated to vote, but they should feel required to, so that they may be able to benefit the next generation. If they are eligible to cast a ballot, then they are able to help change the future of this beautiful country. If a citizen feels strongly about any topic or issue, it is their responsibility to find a candidate that stands for a similar value and put a check next to their name.
Voting laws may be complex at this time, limiting some with voter identification laws, but those regulations will not be changed if government officials are able to limit certain people from voting. Politicians must be voted in that embrace the votes from people of all walks of life, not just middle-class or higher white males, which, according to Janell Ross at the Washington Post, is the key group of voters currently.
“It’s in these elections that white voters, voters with more education and income, and older voters are dominant forces. Simply put, they show up and vote in relatively substantial numbers while registered lower-income and minority voters don’t,” Ross noted about municipal and midterm elections.
For Wisconsinites, Spring primary elections will be held on Feb. 20. Information about Wisconsin voting can be found at myvote.wi.gov. Nationally, information for voting may be found at vote.gov. Registration to vote can be completed through this website.
