I’ve never not voted. As a citizen, I believe it’s the least I can do. It’s what I owe and what I’m owed. Voting is easy to do. If you want to, you can vote in a single race and leave the rest of the ballot blank, though I don’t recommend that. Being an informed voter is more work, but a lot more gratifying. It’s also easy to register to vote, although the party that doesn’t want people to vote is always trying to make it harder.
You don’t have to be a hero to vote. You just have to be a citizen, and I like being a citizen. I like thinking about ways our society could work better. One of those ways is convincing more people to vote.
Voting makes us better citizens. When I vote, I feel like an integral part of an enormous, interconnected family. I don’t mind that my vote is just one of many. Our country’s motto, after all, is “Out of many, one.” My single vote never feels inconsequential.
Thankfully, now, there are multiple ways to vote — early voting, mail-in voting, but I still like the old-fashioned way: on Election Day, in-person, at my polling place. I walk to my precinct, check in with the election workers, state my name, feel some relief that I’m still on the list. I ask for a paper ballot, find an open booth, take as long as I want to fill it out using whatever notes I’ve accumulated, feed the completed ballot into the tally machine, and get my “I Voted” sticker, which I wear prominently for the rest of the day.
I didn’t always believe in the integrity of our voting system, but I do now, ever since 2020, in spite of the Republicans’ efforts to undermine it. When I walk outside after voting, things look different. I allow myself a tiny virtue rush. I don’t need a pat on the back or a participation medal. It’s personal and private. I only wear my “I Voted” sticker as a reminder to others. I hope it might jog someone’s memory and get them in to vote.
I vote because, as a lifelong member of “We the People,” voting is our collective superpower. If enough of my fellow citizens vote with me, we can become the change we’ve been waiting for. We can — and have on occasion — outvoted the Big Money and the forces in favor of taking this country backward. We might even elect a few visionaries who will help this nation reach its full potential.
We can, and have, voted out the corrupt and criminal elements who take pride in, and profit from, holding us back. Those forces prevail too often, but I keep voting anyway, out of stubborn insistence — an act of resistance, as Anne White put it in these pages recently.
I vote to feel briefly powerful. It may be just a micro-burst, but voting is the fastest avenue to self-esteem, the best way to feel like you belong. If you don’t vote, you should try it. It will make you feel better about yourself. I vote because it feels far more patriotic than singing at some sporting event with cap in hand and hand over heart.
I vote to keep hope alive, to keep democracy alive. I vote because not voting would be admitting defeat. I may lose when I vote, but I never feel defeated.
Voting is the opposite of cynicism. In fact, it feels like an antidote. On the day I vote, I am a believer — idealistic but not naïve. I feel like a fellow American, not a fallow American. On Election Day, I feel like part of the vast cast in a painting by Norman Rockwell where what is important about America is captured and preserved.
I vote in a country that still changes its clocks twice a year for reasons everyone has forgotten, forward for eight months, backward for four. We are a backward/forward country. It’s no coincidence that when we turn our clocks back, we plunge into darkness. I want this country to move forward, not backward. We’re backward enough as it is. I vote in the dark, but I vote for the light.
Voting in this country is like herding cats. They say we get the leadership we deserve, which at the moment is irrational and inexcusable. I vote with the hope that someday we’ll wise up. I vote because I want a Congress that has a clue and in two years I want a president who isn’t a criminal.
I vote for the same reason people stood in line for hours after the polls closed in 2008 to vote for the guy who had already won, the guy who talked about hope and Yes, we can. I vote because I want to be counted and because I do count.
Will it matter? It has in the past and I believe it will in the future.
And it might matter just two weeks from now.
Care to join me?