Four Reasons You Need to be Registered to Vote
These past few weeks have been full of mainstream political tension after the first Presidential Debate, the assassination attempt on Donald Trump, and most recently, Joe Biden ending his re-election bid. Many are debating who to vote for now and wondering who the official Democratic candidate will be. However, a significant number of people have decided they don't want to vote at all.
Here’s why you should.
1. Voting is a Part of the Democratic Process.
Voting rights have played a huge role in the democracy of the U.S. By voting, citizens participate in the democratic process. Citizens vote for leaders to represent them and their ideas, and these leaders support the citizens' interests.
2. Vote for Those Who Can’t.
Voter suppression and intimidation are real and have been since the beginning of this country. For example:
Literacy Tests: These were used to exclude persons with minimal literacy, particularly poor African Americans in the South, from voting. Prospective voters were asked to interpret abstract provisions of the U.S. Constitution or had their applications rejected for errors.
Poll Taxes: Started in the 1890s as a legal way to keep African Americans from voting in southern states, poll taxes required eligible voters to pay a fee before they could cast a ballot.
Grandfather Clause: This excused some poor whites from paying the poll tax if they had an ancestor who voted before the Civil War, but there were no exemptions for African Americans.
Voter suppression is any effort, legal or illegal, by way of laws, administrative rules, and tactics that prevent eligible voters from casting their votes. It is one of the most troubling issues facing our democracy today. When communities cannot vote, they are powerless and left without a seat at the table. This allows policymakers to make decisions that do not represent the will of the electorate or pursue policies which discriminate against communities whose participation in democracy has been suppressed. Examples of modern-day voter suppression include:
In Texas, only voters who are 65 and older, living with a disability, or due to give birth within three weeks before or after Election Day can vote by mail.
In Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott signed an order limiting the number of ballot drop boxes to one per county.
In South Carolina, a woman's ballot was rejected because the envelope was damaged.
3. Our Ancestors Died for Our Right to Vote.
Our people fought for our right to vote consistently. In June of 1964, African Americans flooded the state of Mississippi for a volunteer campaign known as Freedom Summer to attempt to register as many African-American voters as possible in Mississippi.
White America was not pleased with Black Americans pushing for fair voting rights. As a result, whites practiced violent massive resistance as a way to intimidate aspiring Black voters. On March 7, 1965, known as Bloody Sunday, there was a violent assault on civil rights marchers in Selma, Alabama. The Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) organized the march to protest against violence and civil rights discrimination, and to demand federal voting rights legislation.
Not voting is actively practicing erasure of what our ancestors fought for and pursuing ignorance by choice.
4. Vote Because You Have Compassion for Those You Care About.
Even if whoever's in office won't directly affect you, chances are it will affect someone you care about. Surely you have a woman in your life who you would want to have rights to her own body. Surely, there's a niece, nephew, little sibling, or any child in your life whose safety you care about and wouldn't want them to be a victim of unnecessary gun violence. You might have friends or family members in the LGBTQ community whose rights and protections could be at stake. Voting ensures that you are standing up for their rights and well-being.
This is our time to organize, mobilize, and make a difference. We the people, let’s vote.