I can’t wait to vote. Do I know who will make a better president? Hardly. Has either party my allegiance? Not at all. Do I even know who I will vote for? Not yet. But I can’t wait to vote.
Even though I have recently turned 21 (shots! shots! shots! everybody!), I’m more excited about expressing a right I earned three years ago when I turned 18. This Nov. 6, I and many of you will vote for the first time in a presidential election.
Isn’t that thrilling? We are finally able to actively participate in democracy. We, as mere college students, can express our citizenship and cast a ballot. We will influence the direction our nation will take. Just think about all the issues: national health care, the economy, foreign policy. Can you wait to get into that voting booth? I know I can’t.
Cue the skepticism: Your vote doesn’t count. We live in a blue state. The Electoral College abnegates the significance of our votes. Our democratic system is fundamentally inept.
These criticisms are common and can dampen anyone’s enthusiasm about participating in democracy. But while this skeptical mindset seems to carry significant sway on our campus, I want to push back against it and offer a few reasons why voting on Nov. 6 should be, and is, entirely meaningful.
We can think about the significance of casting a ballot in the presidential election next month in two ways: materially and symbolically.
Materially, on a literal level: No one ever said that you have the right to determine who the next president will be. What is your right? You have the right to play a role in a larger calculus that determines the outcome. There is a difference there. We are guaranteed the right to have the potential to influence local and national politics. That’s significant.
Thinking that your vote only matters if it is the sole determinative factor of the outcome is solipsistic and misguided. With such an unrealistic standard, it’s no surprise ignorant people stay home on Election Day.
Further, symbolically, by voting for either Obama or Romney, you are not only affirming and participating in democracy, but expressing something about yourself as well. What you think our national priorities should be says a lot about your own values. Should we invest in clean energy or focus on the rights of people overseas to have peaceful lives, free of oppression? Does a woman’s right to control her own body, to get an abortion if she so chooses, matter to you? If so, then get in that voting booth!
I don’t think that you have to be an uber-nationalist or a naive proponent of democracy to find these issues important. Once you’ve come that far, acknowledging that your vote is meaningful is the next step.
Plus, as abstract and foreign as the issues may seem, many are in fact pressing and imminently related to our lives. During the debate on Wednesday night, one of the most covered topics was the funding of public education. In that moment, it was clear to me that as citizens generally, and as students in particular, we matter and our say matters.
What are you saying if you choose not to vote? You are saying that you don’t really care about the history which has gotten us to where we are today. Remember that we enjoy a unique privilege in the scope of history and the world. It isn’t all that entrenched or common, from either a historical lens or a modern global perspective, that being 18 gives one the right to cast a ballot. Don’t take your rights, or your opportunity to play a part in national politics, for granted.