The other day someone said to me, “As a voter, I feel impotent.”
We were reminiscing about four years ago, when there seemed to be so much hope in the air—hope that things could and would change and that our vote was part of making that happen.
EVERYWHERE AND HEREThe other day someone said to me, “As a voter, I feel impotent.”
We were reminiscing about four years ago, when there seemed to be so much hope in the air—hope that things could and would change and that our vote was part of making that happen.
Fast-forward to today, and the air smells pretty stale.
The numbers reflect it, too.
A survey conducted by the Guardian compares 2012 voter registration numbers in six crucial swing states with those in 2008. The results showed that today “voter registrations…are markedly down.”
People aren’t just feeling unmotivated by our political climate, they’re acting like it, too. For this very reason, your class probably had a visit from our friendly representatives from the Associated Students of Portland State University, encouraging you to register before the Oct. 16 deadline.
They made it as simple as pie, and because of groups like this one, people discovered there was a deadline.
What they can’t do is fill out your ballot, sign it, buy you a stamp and stick it in the mail come election time.
It’s not like we don’t know that voting is important. It’s been grilled into our brains from pretty much every direction—it’s essentially one of the greatest freedoms we enjoy as American citizens. To a pretty big number of us, though, it feels like such a chore. Many will just skip it altogether.
That’s not an option.
It can feel pretty useless, choosing between two candidates who, try as they might to convince us otherwise, can’t guarantee that they’ll provide us with jobs, help us pay for school and health care, or bring the economy back to life.
In the end, changing this country is up to us, not just one person who spends most of his time mediating the bickering and name-calling on Capitol Hill, attempting to make the kids play nice. It’s more than that.
Look at the countries involved in the Arab Spring: What is the essential, common ingredient in each movement? People power. The common agreement was that things couldn’t keep going the way they were. And things happened.
Their circumstances were vastly different, but I can’t help thinking that so much of what marked these historical pushes for societal transformation can teach us a thing or two about how change happens.
We’ve become so used to having “certain unalienable rights,” that we forget what they cost and how privileged we are to exercise them on a daily basis.
Well, we don’t have that luxury.
We may not have a dictatorial, autocratic government to fight against for our right to vote or to enjoy religious and social freedoms, but what we do have is our own insidious enemy—apathy.
We complain that the president hasn’t made our lives better. But if we’re not willing to take half an hour out of our day to pencil in our choices, sign and lick an envelope and drop it in the mailbox, then our words are empty.
Voting is important. In fact, it’s crucial. And not just in the presidential race. It’s local politicians like our mayor and city council members whose decisions affect us on a day-to-day basis and whose policies we ourselves can affect.
It starts from the roots—and making our voices heard, no matter who we think is listening, is the first step.
If Egyptians believed that a grassroots movement would change their nation, then so must we. It would indeed be a revolution if every eligible voter participated in the elections.
Maybe we won’t see everything we want out of our government in our lifetime, but at least we can say we did more than just sit back and watch.
