You vote every day. You vote for your favorite teams, chosen car, greatest designer and most trusted banks and businesses. The clothes you wear, where you spend your money and even the people you spend time with is your vote, your endorsement, your support for your choice.  Why then would you not vote in our upcoming elections?
I would never tell you who to vote for. At least not here, but ask me if you want my opinionated suggestions. What I do want to say is you have a right, a privilege and an obligation to vote. A right to vote because you are part of this great country. We are proud and yet stubborn. People living under dictatorship or oppression everywhere dream of having the right to vote, the chance for change, the voice to make a difference. We have a spectacular history of hard fought battles that made it possible for all of us, women, poor, minority, rich, educated and uneducated alike to have a vote. If we do not exercise that right, we disrespect all those who have gone before us fighting to make it free, safe and protected to vote. If we do not exercise that right, we just might lose it.
We also have a privilege in voting. We get to feel a part, included, empowered and like we can make a difference. Did your favorite team ask you about the last coaching change? When the bank fired their president, did they ask what you thought? No! Did you withdraw all of your money or burn your favorite jersey? Of course not. Why then would you think that just because you did not admire the candidate of your party, you should stop being an American.
My neighbor, Ms. Barb, nearing 90 years old, told me she first voted for President Truman whom she did not like. She voted in every election since. In 16 elections she only liked one or two candidates and one of them turned out to be a terrible president. But, most importantly she voted every single time. Her great-granddaughter will vote in her first election this year. The college freshman, a smart girl on full academic scholarship, calls her great gran regularly, and one of their favorite topics is politics. Even though they do not always agree, they both strongly feel it a privilege to exercise their right to be heard when they vote.
Ms. Barb says anything you have a part of, have a stake in, you are more likely to support. So, maybe those who don’t vote should not have support in return since they have not invested. They really have no part, do they?
Finally, you have an obligation to vote. You may or may not endorse any candidate or like the platform of any party. It might be inconvenient or troublesome to travel to the poll, stand in line, present identification, make your ballot choices, but you are part of the whole. You are a citizen, a piece of the great American pie, one voice in the cacophony that makes the music of our amalgamated nation. Whether you are politically active, with that exclusive membership comes obligation. You carry a driver’s license, hold a passport, possess a birth certificate that makes you a part of the entity that is our community, our state, our nation. You drive highways, use phone and internet lines, utilize infrastructure and take up space and resources created by the machine of a country you are so quick to criticize. What makes you an exemption?
When you say your vote does not matter, you negate the very foundation of our nation. All people count; all voices have worth; all lives matter. In a time where certain groups and factions want to exclude or even exterminate some others, it is more important than ever that we use our one voice. History has proven that one voice can start a revolution, bringing change for either good or bad. If we become silent then those who would oppress win. Our non-vote allows them to continue the pursuit of exclusion and exception. I, for one, want to continue to live in a country of inclusion and acceptance.