The first time I entered a voting booth I was just over a year old. My mother “liked” Ike just fine, but voted for Stevenson. I didn’t enter a voting booth again until I was 21 when I voted for George McGovern. But that doesn’t mean I wasn’t interested, didn’t know about, or even work on campaigns. When I was 14 I worked on the mayoral campaign of the first African American to run since Reconstruction. (In a 5-way split he got the most votes but in the runoff Houston preferred to elect the white grifter to the black man.) Right after Bobby Kennedy was assassinated I temporarily despaired of the system – why vote if your decision is going to be preempted by some S.O.B. with a gun – but I did get over it by the time I was old enough to vote. My mother made sure of it. Women got the right to vote when her mother was 15. It’s not a right any of the women in my family have taken for granted.
One of the rallying cries for the American Revolution was “No Taxation without Representation” – a very fiscally sound notion. If I don’t have somebody representing me in government, then I shouldn’t be subject to that government. That doesn’t mean I’ll always agree with what my representative does (and heaven knows that’s been the case since I moved to Arkansas), but I have representation chosen via a process that I had a part in. This is the core of what makes a free society.
Elections are the bloodless revolutions America holds every two years. And while in many ways the process has been rigged, the biggest problem is people not voting. Unfortunately much of that is personal choice. People don’t understand the process and don’t think their vote is important so they don’t. But there will always be people who don’t want other people to vote. People who have gained power through less than honorable means and probably by the skin of their teeth can only hold that power by suppressing the vote. This is the biggest place local and even individual action can help change things.
Register people to vote. Check with your local Elections Commission where to get the forms and also the rules for how to do it. Set up, with permission, where there’s a lot of foot traffic. I’ve staffed voter registration tables at the local Farmers Market but grocery stores, at the mall, charitable events, even church events are all good venues. Don’t pressure anybody to vote a certain way. This is not campaigning. Depending on your state’s laws and where you do it, you may be able to wear political paraphernalia and answer anyone’s questions about who you personally support, but that’s not the point. Getting people registered in plenty of time prior to the election is the point. Giving people information about what kinds of IDs they may need – and where to get them – is the point. Once voter registration is done, then you can staff a campaign booth (again, with permission) and possibly catch those same people for a different conversation. But get them registered first. Without voter registration they have no voice.
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