November 1,
2006
No Excuse
Not To Vote
All U.S.
citizens have a duty the first Tuesday in November. That duty is to
vote. Voting is both a privilege and a responsibility of citizenship.
Just like paying taxes, serving on juries and not exceeding the speed
limit or driving while intoxicated.
There are
precious few legitimate excuses for not voting. On Election Day, polls
are open both before and after office hours. My state, Texas, offers
absentee ballots and advance voting during the two weeks prior to any
election. There is enough time somewhere in all that to cast a ballot.
There are
some obstacles to voting regularly. Any business caught making it
difficult, if not impossible, for eligible employees to vote should face
serious consequences, not just a wrist slap. Likewise, state and local
officials are charged with doing everything possible to register
citizens to vote and then to help them accomplish the act of casting a
ballot. Those who are hindering or manipulating these efforts should be
tossed out of office and possibly prosecuted for malfeasance, if not
criminal fraud. All state and county voting officials should hold office
without party affiliation to enhance their credibility. Electronic
voting machines are vulnerable to tampering and should be required to
provide a paper ballot that voters review and certify as an accurate
record of their votes.
Yes,
reviewing candidates and incumbents takes time and some candlepower. All
sorts of helpful resources are readily available, however. The League of
Women Voters (www.lwv.org)
has chapters in every state that regularly glean candidates’ positions
on issues and make them available to anyone for the asking. Local
newspapers always make recommendations and endorsements. These are good
if only to clarify which candidates to avoid, depending on readers’
views of the paper’s editorial politics.
As some are
always ready to remind us, freedom isn’t truly free. Taking time to vote
is a very small price to pay for making our republic work. Our soldiers,
sailors, marines and pilots served, bled and died to preserve our right
to vote. The very least we can do in return is exercise that right when
it comes time to do so.
Voting in
every election is the essence of patriotic citizenship. Patriotism does
not consist of flag-waving or cheering veterans on parade. These are
cheap and all too often empty acts, especially when the flowery phrases
are followed by attempts to cut veterans’ benefits or lack of adequate
protective equipment in a battle zone.
In the
aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, I didn’t fly an American flag. I didn‘t
join a candlelight vigil, although in my heart I lit a candle for
everyone who died, and those lights still glow half a decade later, my
sorrow still sharp and painful.
But there
is one civic duty I have performed for more than three decades, almost
without fail. Since the presidential election of 1972, I have voted in
elections, local, state and national. The only voting day I recall
missing was back in 2003 when the space shuttle Columbia broke up over
the skies of my state. In my shock and grief, I forgot that there was a
city election that day.
As a woman,
I vote not only because it is my civic responsibility and to honor the
sacrifices of our fighting forces. I vote in full awareness of my
foremothers’ 72-year struggle to win the right for women to vote. The
conservatives of their day excoriated suffragists as home-wreckers and
branded them as traitors during World War I for demanding the same
rights at home as the United States supposedly was defending abroad.
Undaunted, they pressed their case and eventually prevailed. Both of my
grandmothers were in their twenties when women won the right to vote.
I don’t buy
the argument that there is little difference between the political
parties. On issues like Social Security, the environment and the minimum
wage there are huge differences. There might even be greater differences
between Democrats and Republicans if more eligible voters went to the
polls on a regular basis. The one thing the denizens of Foggy Bottom
fear more than anything else is an informed citizenry exercising the
right to supervise them and kick them out of office. They are, after
all, only temporary help.
With the
latest sex scandal, it’s more tempting than ever to write off Congress
as a cesspool of corruption. Why bother to vote if nothing ever changes?
When we don’t vote, we give a free pass to those with whom we may
disagree to make or break laws that affect all of us, with very real and
often devastating consequences (think Iraq war). Is that what we want?
© 2006
North Star Writers Group. May not be republished without permission.
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