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Your Voice Matters
The airwaves have been full of hate speech, doom and gloom, division, and blaming. No wonder we are exhausted. No wonder we can’t wait for the election to be over.
For me, as a leader of a democracy-building organization, I am sad that our national elections have taken this turn. I remember turning 18 and the excitement I had at being able to enter the voting booth and select the candidates that best fit my values. I voted for Senator Paul Simon, as an Illinoisan, and followed his statesmanlike career throughout my adult life. He became a friend, a fellow advocate for adult literacy, civil rights and an end to the death penalty. I recently learned that he supported a humanitarian mission to Rwanda in 1994 during the genocide there. And he even wrote a book on interfaith marriages! His hallmark bowtie made him look approachable, and his incorruptible principles kept me coming to the polls with hope. I’ve never missed a chance to vote.
As I told my staff, it is none of my business who you vote for, only that you vote your principles. People have died for the right to vote, right here in this nation. African-American people fought the literacy tests and the Jim Crow laws that placed nearly insurmountable barriers to their right to vote. Women were imprisoned and tortured for participating in the suffragette movement for women’s rights to vote.
So, please, vote. I hope you will vote for a thriving democracy with the joy and hope of your 18-year old self and the knowledge that your vote matters. Our nation is founded on liberty and justice for all, and we are the ones who make it so.
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