This year marks the 100th anniversary of white women’s suffrage, and it’s going to be one of the biggest elections in history. The 2020 Presidential Election is just around the corner. If you haven’t already voted, I’m here to tell you to do so and to vote for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.
Why should you vote?
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It’s your right, and you have a civic duty to vote.
People have died defending the right to vote, and voter suppression is still very real in America. If you have the opportunity to vote, take it. Voting is taking an active role in deciding education, jobs, health care, infrastructure, taxes, and many other issues.
White women earned the right to vote in 1920, but this is not the case for all women. Asian-Americans could not vote until 1943, Native Americans until 1962, and legislation did not correct voter suppression of Latinx people until 1974.
Many groups of people were not able to vote until very recently. If you can vote, do it for those, who can’t.
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Protect human rights
With the new Supreme Court justice being appointed only a week before the election, many rights are now at risk of being overturned. Reproductive rights can be affected in courts, but governments overall determine women’s rights in state laws and the federal level. LGBTQ+ rights are also at risk. The Supreme Court has the power to overturn decisions previously made and create new ones that can stay in effect forever.
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Your vote DOES matter.
Voting can seem like a fruitless effort, and even I can admit that at times it’s felt useless. With the negativity in the world, sometimes it feels like democracy is dead and that our voices, individually, don’t matter, but they do. Even though your vote may not directly choose the president, it does contribute to the electoral system and can decide who your delegates vote for.
Voter suppression has existed since the fights to give people other than white men the right to vote began. Voter suppression is so strong, and to an extent, still exists today. The long history of voter suppression is still ongoing when you buy into the belief that your vote doesn’t matter. Sitting out of elections lets them win.
What do you care about? Voting is how you let officials and politicians know what you care about.
So vote. You’re not only sharing your voice, but you’re also giving voices to those who can’t vote. Voting not only affects you, but it also affects everyone who lives in this country. If you don’t want to vote to protect your rights, think about voting to protect the rights of others.
Joe Biden might not have been your first choice or even your second choice, but he is the only choice we have. This is not to say that his policies and stances are the be-all and end-all for the Democratic party and your own personal beliefs, but to see the results you hope to, we have to start somewhere. He may not be the President we wanted, but he is the President we need.
Not voting doesn’t help anyone, and being complicit and ignoring serious issues during these times is just as bad as supporting Trump.
Carve out a couple of hours of your time to go to the polls on November 3rd if you haven’t voted already. Take a stand to say you don’t condemn racism or sexism, that you care about climate change and education and health care and LGBTQ+ rights, and to show that you are doing your job to help fix the problems in our country.