“Not voting is not a protest. It is a surrender.” — Keith Ellison
The 2016 election was nothing short of a tumultuous one; the issues were deeply divisive, the candidates were hostile to another, the policies were overlooked, and it was undermined by the Russian government. As a result, Americans now have less faith in our voting system, and this sentiment is negatively impacting voting turnouts.
Nonetheless, I encourage you to continue to vote. If you are part of the 50 percent of the electorate age 18 to 29 who did not vote last year, please start.
I attended the Civic Power Symposium on Saturday, Nov. 4 at the University of Texas at Austin. The event was part of the Annette Strauss Institute’s initiative to cultivate informed voters and active citizens. It consisted of discussion amongst other young adults about our current civic health, personal civic experiences, and a keynote presentation by renowned TED speaker, Eric Liu.
In his presentation, he spoke of power, what it means, and its three laws: power compounds; power self-justifies; and power is infinite. “While people who are held down realize that they can organize,” Liu says, “the status quo pushes back.” This constant churn and tension is politics, a persistent struggle between those who have power and those who are seeking it.
While this struggle may seem aimless to some, Liu believes that “you have to persist if you want to right a wrong.” That persistence lies in voting. All of us have the potential to organize to gain power, use that power to create a motion to change, and to vote to make it a reality. “If all you have is [civic] fluency and power, but you are otherwise not motivated to change,” says Liu, “you are just a highly skilled sociopath.”
Abraham Lincoln once said, “If you want to test a man’s character, give him power.” We each have the ability to gain power by organizing, so our motivation for change then speaks true for our character. What we value is shown when we vote.
In every part of our country, there are people that have a tremendous amount of talent and hustle that can contribute to bettering the world. None of these people will succeed if they do not have an environment where people vote to better their communities. “Not voting is like wearing a ‘kick-me’ sign,” according to Liu. Not voting surrenders your power and potential to better the world.
The city of Austin held an election on Tuesday, Nov. 7, and while I am not a native of Texas, I still voted. Many of the propositions do not pertain to me, but I still had the ability to exhibit my character and use my power to try to create the change I want to see in this state. When all of us who have the privilege of voting go and vote, we exhibit our character and solidify what we value through exercising our power to vote.
I encourage you to do the same. There are likely to be local elections coming in your area in the near future, but even if there are not (check here), there is a congressional election in November of 2018. All 435 House seats and 33 Senate seats are going to be contested, so if you are concerned, organize with other people about something you want to see change and exercise that power through voting for a candidate that will act in the best interests of your character.