why we should vote wisely essay

Times of San Diego

Local News and Opinion for San Diego

Opinion: Voting—and Voting Wisely—Are Acts of Practical Wisdom in Society

Why Voting Is Important

“Voting is your civic duty.” This is a pretty common sentiment, especially each November as Election Day approaches. But what does it really mean? And what does it mean for Americans in particular?

Social Studies, Civics, U.S. History

Americans Voting

Typically in the United States, national elections draw large numbers of voters compared to local elections.

Hill Street Studios

A History of Voting in the United States Today, most American citizens over the age of 18 are entitled to vote in federal and state elections , but voting was not always a default right for all Americans. The United States Constitution, as originally written, did not define specifically who could or could not vote—but it did establish how the new country would vote. Article 1 of the Constitution determined that members of the Senate and House of Representatives would both be elected directly by popular vote . The president, however, would be elected not by direct vote, but rather by the Electoral College . The Electoral College assigns a number of representative votes per state, typically based on the state’s population. This indirect election method was seen as a balance between the popular vote and using a state’s representatives in Congress to elect a president. Because the Constitution did not specifically say who could vote, this question was largely left to the states into the 1800s. In most cases, landowning white men were eligible to vote, while white women, black people, and other disadvantaged groups of the time were excluded from voting (known as disenfranchisement ).

While no longer explicitly excluded, voter suppression is a problem in many parts of the country. Some politicians try to win re election by making it harder for certain populations and demographics to vote. These politicians may use strategies such as reducing polling locations in predominantly African American or Lantinx neighborhoods, or only having polling stations open during business hours, when many disenfranchised populations are working and unable to take time off. It was not until the 15th Amendment was passed in 1869 that black men were allowed to vote. But even so, many would-be voters faced artificial hurdles like poll taxes , literacy tests, and other measures meant to discourage them from exercising their voting right. This would continue until the 24th Amendment in 1964, which eliminated the poll tax , and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which ended Jim Crow laws. Women were denied the right to vote until 1920, when the long efforts of the women’s suffrage movement resulted in the 19th Amendment. With these amendments removing the previous barriers to voting (particularly sex and race), theoretically all American citizens over the age of 21 could vote by the mid 1960s. Later, in 1971, the American voting age was lowered to 18, building on the idea that if a person was old enough to serve their country in the military, they should be allowed to vote. With these constitutional amendments and legislation like the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the struggle for widespread voting rights evolved from the Founding Fathers’ era to the late 20th century. Why Your Vote Matters If you ever think that just one vote in a sea of millions cannot make much of a difference, consider some of the closest elections in U.S. history. In 2000, Al Gore narrowly lost the Electoral College vote to George W. Bush. The election came down to a recount in Florida, where Bush had won the popular vote by such a small margin that it triggered an automatic recount and a Supreme Court case ( Bush v. Gore ). In the end, Bush won Florida by 0.009 percent of the votes cast in the state, or 537 votes. Had 600 more pro-Gore voters gone to the polls in Florida that November, there may have been an entirely different president from 2000–2008. More recently, Donald Trump defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016 by securing a close Electoral College win. Although the election did not come down to a handful of votes in one state, Trump’s votes in the Electoral College decided a tight race. Clinton had won the national popular vote by nearly three million votes, but the concentration of Trump voters in key districts in “swing” states like Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Michigan helped seal enough electoral votes to win the presidency. Your vote may not directly elect the president, but if your vote joins enough others in your voting district or county, your vote undoubtedly matters when it comes to electoral results. Most states have a “winner take all” system where the popular vote winner gets the state’s electoral votes. There are also local and state elections to consider. While presidential or other national elections usually get a significant voter turnout, local elections are typically decided by a much smaller group of voters. A Portland State University study found that fewer than 15 percent of eligible voters were turning out to vote for mayors, council members, and other local offices. Low turnout means that important local issues are determined by a limited group of voters, making a single vote even more statistically meaningful. How You Can Make Your Voice Heard If you are not yet 18, or are not a U.S. citizen, you can still participate in the election process. You may not be able to walk into a voting booth, but there are things you can do to get involved:

Be informed! Read up on political issues (both local and national) and figure out where you stand.
Get out and talk to people. Even if you cannot vote, you can still voice opinions on social media, in your school or local newspaper, or other public forums. You never know who might be listening.
Volunteer. If you support a particular candidate, you can work on their campaign by participating in phone banks, doing door-to-door outreach, writing postcards, or volunteering at campaign headquarters. Your work can help get candidates elected, even if you are not able to vote yourself.

Participating in elections is one of the key freedoms of American life. Many people in countries around the world do not have the same freedom, nor did many Americans in centuries past. No matter what you believe or whom you support, it is important to exercise your rights.

Media Credits

The audio, illustrations, photos, and videos are credited beneath the media asset, except for promotional images, which generally link to another page that contains the media credit. The Rights Holder for media is the person or group credited.

Production Managers

Program specialists, last updated.

October 19, 2023

User Permissions

For information on user permissions, please read our Terms of Service. If you have questions about how to cite anything on our website in your project or classroom presentation, please contact your teacher. They will best know the preferred format. When you reach out to them, you will need the page title, URL, and the date you accessed the resource.

If a media asset is downloadable, a download button appears in the corner of the media viewer. If no button appears, you cannot download or save the media.

Text on this page is printable and can be used according to our Terms of Service .

Interactives

Any interactives on this page can only be played while you are visiting our website. You cannot download interactives.

Related Resources

The Singular Importance of Your Vote—And the Steps You Need To Take Before Election Day

"Some elections are razor-thin. In 2016, the margin of victory for Donald Trump in the swing states that he won was less than 1 percent," says Dr. Cobb. But it's not just the presidential election you need to think about every four years—between general elections, it's the midterms, it's all 435 seats in the House of Representatives, it's 100 seats in the Senate, it's 50 governorships, it's your mayor, it's ballot measures, and more, she adds. "Even if you're in a state where it's likely that one of the two major presidential candidates will win because it's a 'safe state,' there are other down-ballot races that are not necessarily safe. Your vote makes a huge difference."

Lonna Atkeson, PhD , Lonna Atkeson, PhD, is a professor of political science at the University of New Mexico. Dr. Atkeson's general research program involves a wide number of subfields within political science including elections, campaigns, election administration, public opinion, political behavior, the media,...
Rachael Cobb, PhD , chair and associate professor of government at Suffolk University

Simply put, voting is power, says Dr. Cobb. "The theory of democracy is that it is a government for and by the people, and the vote is the basic building block that gives people the power to control their government and to shape what policies they want and the future direction of their town, state, and country," she says, adding that your vote should serve as "the great equalizer." But that's not always the case.

There are many people for whom the right to vote is taken away. Discriminatory voter ID laws prevent millions of people from voting each year. Take for example a 2020 Supreme Court ruling that upheld a law requiring formerly incarcerated people to pay all fines and fees associated with their sentence before they're allowed to vote; it kept 1 million Floridians from voting .

"Why would people spend so much time trying to take political power away from people?" asks Dr. Cobb. "Because political power actually matters. It makes a big difference in our lives, makes a big difference to the kind of economic power that we have to the distribution of government resources to communities. It makes a big difference to the kinds of policies that we're going to have in the future."

"Why would people spend so much time trying to take political power away from people?"

Lonna Atkeson, PhD , professor of political science at the University of New Mexico, explains that voting restrictions were brought over from Britain.

"[These laws] weren't initially discriminatory policies," says Dr. Atkeson. "When only white male property holders were allowed to vote, voting restrictions existed. After the Civil War, those same measures were used to deny African Americans the right to vote."

And these laws vary from state to state—in Vermont and Maine, for example, people in prison can vote . Dr. Atkeson explains that the ruling on Florida stems directly from a 2018 vote. Nearly two-thirds of voters in Florida chose to amend the state constitution and allow felons to vote. "What's the corrective measure? You create a new initiative and you put it on the ballot," says Dr. Atkeson. "The good thing is that democracy is an iterative process. And it's something that we're always building on and moving forward with."

Voting in the 2020 general election was especially tricky. Social distancing rules, paired with a high turnout of voters (as seen in the 2018 midterm elections and the 2020 primary elections ), made poll lines much longer. Millions of people, some for the first time, voted by mail, and not every state was properly equipped to handle such volume of absentee ballots. Washington, Oregon, and Colorado, vote completely by mail, and Montana and Arizona have a permanent vote by mail lists that include 70 percent of the state population. But other states aren't as accustomed to the vote-by-mail process.

"States that haven't built the [vote-by-mail] system, their voter registration file is a lot dirtier, with many more errors in it," says Dr. Atkeson. Using inaccurate lists to mail out ballots means many ballots may never arrive at their intended destinations. And if you make a mistake on your ballot such as the wrong zip code or omitting an apartment number, it might not be counted. An NPR analysis found that within the 2020 primary elections held before July 2020 "at least 65,000 absentee or mail-in ballots were rejected because they arrived past the deadline, often through no fault of the voter."

To make sure your vote counts, Dr. Cobb explains that you have to do a bit more planning than usual. First step, look to your state's website for voting information and instructions for how to register to vote —and do it now.

"There are a lot of organizations that are I think trying to do really good work, and I'm delighted that they're all out there doing it. But at the end of the day, it is the state that is providing the reliable information about when voting is going to happen and who to contact, etc. And in most states, that's the Secretary of State's website," says Dr. Cobb. "Look early at what the overall plan is in your state: Is there early voting? If there is early voting, where it is going to be held? What is the process of mail ballots? What do you feel comfortable doing? And then really having a plan for how you're going to vote."

"Serving as a poll worker is one of the best things you can do this year to serve your country."

If you're mailing your ballot, send it in as early as possible. If your state has early in-person voting, Dr. Cobb says to take advantage of it in order to prevent long lines on election day, when it's expected that there will be a shortage of poll workers. "Anybody who's interested in getting involved, serving as a poll worker is one of the best things you can do this year to serve your country," she says.

The right to vote is precious. If you have it, you should use it.

"It can be quite disconcerting to have a barrage of negative news every single day and feel powerless," says Dr. Cobb. "But there's actually nothing like participating and actually doing something that is also one of the like healthy things you can do for yourself and for your community. Staying on the sidelines is disempowering; voting is always empowering."

Loading More Posts...

The Beach Is My Happy Place—and Here Are 3 Science-Backed Reasons It Should Be Yours, Too

Your official excuse to add "OOD" (ahem, out of doors) to your cal.

4 Mistakes That Are Causing You to Waste Money on Skin-Care Serums, According to an Esthetician

These Are the Best Anti-Chafing Denim Shorts—According to Some Very Happy Reviewers

Please wait a moment...

Numbers, Facts and Trends Shaping Your World

Read our research on:

Full Topic List

Regions & Countries

Publications
Our Methods
Short Reads
Tools & Resources

Read Our Research On:

Most Americans say it’s very important to vote to be a good member of society

A poll worker hangs signs outside a polling station ahead of the U.S. midterm elections in Los Angeles on Nov. 1, 2022.

Around seven-in-ten U.S. adults (69%) say it’s very important to vote in elections to be a good member of society – more than say the same about any of the other activities included in a Pew Research Center survey conducted earlier this year.

A bar chart showing that about seven-in-ten Americans see voting as very important to being a good member of society

By comparison, fewer than half of Americans say it’s very important to get a COVID-19 vaccine (44%), to make choices that help reduce the effects of global climate change (42%), or to follow what’s happening in politics in their own country (37%) to be a good member of society. Fewer – around two-in-ten – say it’s very important to follow current events in other countries (22%) or attend religious services frequently (22%). And only 13% say it’s very important to join demonstrations about issues they think are important to be a good member of society.

This Pew Research Center analysis focuses on U.S. public opinion about what it means to be a good member of society. It is based on a survey of 3,581 U.S. adults conducted from March 21 to 27, 2022. Everyone who took part is a member of the Center’s American Trends Panel (ATP), an online survey panel that is recruited through national, random sampling of residential addresses. This way nearly all adults have a chance of selection. The survey is weighted to be representative of the U.S. adult population by gender, race, ethnicity, partisan affiliation, education and other categories. Read more about the ATP’s methodology . Here is the question used in this analysis, along with responses.

The comparison of responses by 2020 voter turnout relies on a measure of validated turnout among citizens who are currently at least 20 years old. Validated voters are citizens who told us that they voted in the 2020 general election and have a record for voting in that election in a commercial voter file. In an effort to accurately locate official voting records, up to three commercial voter files were searched for each panelist. The number of commercial files consulted varies by when a panelist was recruited to the ATP. Three files were used for panelists recruited in 2020 or before, while two were used for panelists recruited in 2021. Here are additional details about the voter validation process .

A chart showing that Republicans and Democrats differ over whether several activities are very important civic duties

Although Republicans and Democrats differ in some views of election rules and procedures , there are no partisan differences in the perceived importance of voting. Around seven-in-ten Democrats and independents who lean toward the Democratic Party (73%) and a similar share of Republicans and GOP leaners (70%) say voting is very important to being a good member of society. Past Pew Research Center surveys have found a similar pattern .

Republicans and Democrats also don’t differ when it comes to the importance of following what is happening in U.S. politics. Around four-in-ten in each party (37% of Republicans and 40% of Democrats) say it’s very important to follow politics to be a good member of society.

When it comes to the importance of following current events in other countries, Democrats are somewhat more likely than Republicans (26% vs. 18%) to say it’s very important. Democrats are also more likely than Republicans to say joining demonstrations is very important (17% vs. 8%), while Republicans are more likely than Democrats to say attending religious services regularly is very important (30% vs. 15%).

Partisan divides are widest when it comes to the perceived importance of getting a COVID-19 vaccine and making choices to reduce the effects of climate change. In both cases, Democrats are more than 40 percentage points more likely than Republicans to see it as very important to being a good member of society. As Pew Research Center has previously found , the partisan gap in the perceived importance of getting a COVID-19 vaccine is the largest in the United States out of 19 countries surveyed this year. Climate change is also a key dividing line, with Democrats far more likely than Republicans to see it as a major threat .

Older and younger Americans diverge over what they see as very important for being a good member of society. Generally speaking, older people are more likely than younger people to find nearly all of the activities asked about to be very important. When it comes to voting, for example, 86% of those ages 65 and older say it’s very important, compared with around half (47%) of those under 30. On only two activities – making choices that help reduce the effects of climate change and joining demonstrations about issues people think are important – are older and younger people about equally likely to say it’s crucial for being a good member of society.

A chart showing that older Americans are far more likely than younger Americans to say it’s very important to follow politics and vote in elections to be a good member of society

Americans with at least a college degree or more education are more likely than those without a college degree to see voting and getting a COVID-19 vaccine as very important. The opposite is true when it comes to attending religious services regularly, and there are no educational differences when it comes to the perceived importance of the other activities asked about in the survey.

2020 voter turnout was highest among those who see voting as very important

Do Americans who see voting as very important to being a good member of society actually follow through and vote? A separate analysis of 2020 turnout data suggests that the answer is yes.

A bar chart showing that a majority of those who say voting is very important to being a good member of society are voters

Among those who say it’s very important to vote in order to be a good member of society, the vast majority (79%) cast a ballot in the 2020 election. Among those who say it’s somewhat important to vote to be a good member of society, far fewer (43%) cast a ballot in 2020. And around three-in-ten of those who see voting as either not too important (33%) or not important at all (30%) opted to vote in 2020.

Of course, there are many reasons why some Americans may not have cast a ballot in 2020, even if they generally see voting as an important civic duty.

Political & Civic Engagement
Political Ideals & Systems
Voter Participation

Laura Silver is an associate director focusing on global attitudes at Pew Research Center .

How Americans Get Local Political News

Amid doubts about biden’s mental sharpness, trump leads presidential race, tuning out: americans on the edge of politics, attitudes on an interconnected world, turnout in 2022 house midterms declined from 2018 high, final official returns show, most popular.

901 E St. NW, Suite 300 Washington, DC 20004 USA (+1) 202-419-4300 | Main (+1) 202-857-8562 | Fax (+1) 202-419-4372 | Media Inquiries

Research Topics

Email Newsletters

ABOUT PEW RESEARCH CENTER Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan fact tank that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping the world. It conducts public opinion polling, demographic research, media content analysis and other empirical social science research. Pew Research Center does not take policy positions. It is a subsidiary of The Pew Charitable Trusts .

Professor Owen M. Fiss on the Importance of Voting

It was the spring semester of 2020. Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law Owen M. Fiss was teaching his class A Community of Equals, engaging students in discussions on civil rights laws pertaining to various topics, including voting. Fiss, who helped implement civil and voting rights laws in the 1960s, left the classroom discussion inspired and resolved to write his newest book, Why We Vote .

Shortly after, Fiss found himself not only with an idea but a newfound abundance of time to write due to the COVID-19 pandemic. His work would prove to be timely, as the 2020 presidential election and Jan. 6, 2021 insurrection unfolded while penning the book.

Fiss starts by outlining why the U.S. Supreme Court has a responsibility to uphold the democratic ideal of the Constitution, then delves into recent events that have threatened it.

In the introduction, Fiss stresses the importance of voting, writing, “Unlike the mob that stormed the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, those who do not vote or refrain from voting do not threaten violence. Nor do they obstruct the functioning of a governmental institution. Yet through their inaction, they too impair the political freedom of America that arises from the democratic character of its government and thus violate their elemental duty of citizenship. We vote to preserve democracy and thus our own freedom.”

Each chapter in Why We Vote focuses on Supreme Court cases that sought to enlarge the freedom that democracy generates, pointing to rulings that allowed citizens to vote, facilitated the exercise of their right to vote, ensured the equality of votes, and provided feasible access to the ballot for independent candidates and new political parties.

Professor Owen M. Fiss poses with Cara Meyer ’22

In a concluding chapter, Fiss writes, “The right to vote is the means by which the ruled participate in the process of selecting their rulers and thus is essential for the fulfillment of the democratic purpose of the Constitution. It presumes that one person’s right to vote is as worthy as another’s.”

Fiss credits Cara Meyer ’22, one of the students from his A Community of Equals class, for her role in the discussion that led to Why We Vote and for serving as his editor and research assistant.

Owen Fiss joined the Yale faculty in 1974. In addition to teaching at the School for 50 years, Fiss co-directs the Abdallah S. Kamel Center for the Study of Islamic Law and Civilization and helped found YLS programs on Latin America and the Middle East. In the beginning of his career, he clerked for Thurgood Marshall and William J. Brennan Jr. and served in the Civil Rights Division of the Department of Justice from 1966 to 1968. He is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and was awarded the Phillips Prize in 2020 by the American Philosophical Society for his lifetime achievement in jurisprudence.

Fiss’s countless articles as well as other works include The Civil Rights Injunction , Troubled Beginnings of the Modern State , The Structure of Procedure (with Robert Cover), Procedure (with Robert Cover and Judith Resnik), Liberalism Divided , The Irony of Free Speech , A Community of Equals: The Constitutional Protection of New Americans , A Way Out: America’s Ghettos and the Legacy of Racism , Adjudication and its Alternatives (with Judith Resnik), The Law as It Could Be , The Dictates of Justice: Essays on Law and Human Rights , A War Like No Other: The Constitution in a Time of Terror , and Pillars of Justice: Lawyers and the Liberal Tradition .

In the Press

Police unions often defend their own. but not after the sonya massey shooting, forum shopping happens, but has the northern district of texas gone too far, china’s proposed nationwide digital id system stokes fears of government overreach, was william calley maga’s founding father, related news.

Brick façade and slate roof of Sterling Law Building and a leafy tree against a cloudy sky

Schleicher Appointed the Meyer Research Professor of Property and Urban Law

The courtyard-facing red brick facade of Sterling Law Building with the stone tower to the left and evergreen tree to the right and blue cloudy sky above

Fiona Doherty Appointed Nathan Baker Clinical Professor of Law

Sterling Law Building window depicting "Justice"

John Morley Appointed the Augustus E. Lines Professor of Law

Features and Stories
Extremist Files
Year in Hate & Extremism
Case Docket
Publications
Our Initiatives
Preventing Youth Radicalization
Whose Heritage?
Learning for Justice
Seeking Justice
The Experience
Hate & Extremism
Children's Rights
Family Separation
Rights of Asylum Seekers
Local Policing and Immigration Enforcement
Workers’ Rights
Conversion Therapy
LGBTQ Youth Rights
Request for Legal Assistance — Economic Justice
Criminal Justice Reform
Voting Rights - AL
Voting Rights - FL
Voting Rights - GA
Voting Rights - LA
Voting Rights - MS
Federal Resources and Amicus Briefs
The South's Got Now
Hate Group Flyering Map
Accessibility
Press Center
Ways to Give

A life-changing habit: Five reasons why you should vote in every election

Does voting matter? The clear answer is “yes!”

Voting is a key element of civic engagement and a critical part of the democratic process. As the late civil rights icon and U.S. Rep. John Lewis said, “The vote is precious. It is almost sacred. It is the most powerful nonviolent tool we have in a democracy.”

Voting can change your life. Here are five reasons to vote:

In a democracy, you get a say in things that are important to you. Your vote holds elected officials accountable for their actions. It forces them to listen to you and the issues that most concern you. Your vote is your report card on lawmakers. If you’re not content with the job an elected official has done, you can use your vote to remove that official from office.

The policies shaped by elected officials affect your life. While federal elections typically have the largest voter turnouts, voting in your state and local elections is just as important. What happens in your town, city and state will affect your everyday life. Laws at the local level affect taxes, health and public safety, education, recreation, economic development and more. States regulate issues like health care and tenants’ rights. They determine how long children stay in school, manage infrastructure, spur job creation and do much more.

You pay taxes. Your vote gives power to the people who will spend your tax money . Help ensure that money is used in a responsible and efficient way by voting.

Rights are not necessarily guaranteed . Voting is one of the many privileges of living in a democratic society. While every American citizen has the right to vote today, we are seeing attacks on voting equity , including gerrymandering, voting restrictions, misinformation and election intimidation. Voting is a critical right we must protect, and that begins by exercising our right to vote in elections at every level of government.

You matter. Young voters bring diverse points of view on issues affecting their generation. Engaging in the process early will help make it a habit throughout your life, providing you with the opportunity to shape the future.

Bernadette Kinlaw is a copy editor for the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Graphic word bubble The South's Got Now with Learn More button

The Year in Hate & Extremism 2023

We tracked 1,430 hate and extremist groups in 2023. Hate has no place in our country. Add your name to help us fight hate.

By providing an email address. I agree to the Terms of Use and acknowledge that I have read the Privacy Policy .

The power of your vote

The problem with the usual call for citizens to “vote wisely” is that every single person who walks into a polling precinct on election day to fill out a ballot believes that he or she is doing precisely that: voting wisely.

It is doubtful if any voter deliberately shades the designated oval space beside a particular candidate’s name thinking: “I’m voting for this politician to f*ck my country up.”

It simply doesn’t happen that way. Everyone, regardless of political belief, leanings, educational background, or socioeconomic status, votes believing that he is making the best choice—the wisest choice—whether for his individual self, for the community he belongs to, or the country.

So a call to vote wisely at this time—a day before what is probably the most consequential elections in recent Philippine history—will only serve to reinforce the choice that the voter has already made in his mind.

But this 24-hour pause in between the end of the 90-day campaign period and election day does offer a quiet time that can be used to reflect on one’s choices before they are irrevocably committed to the ballot.

The stakes are as high as they have ever been.

The COVID-19 pandemic continues to rage here and around the world, and overcoming it will require thoughtful allocation of the government’s limited resources, and more Filipinos need to be vaccinated against the deadly disease.

The Philippine economy took a body blow at the beginning of the public health crisis and continues to reel from the worst contraction experienced since World War II. Thousands upon thousands of businesses have closed down, millions have lost their jobs and forms of livelihood. They will need to be fed and housed and made productive again.

The education system is being challenged by the distance learning phenomenon, with no less than the World Bank warning that the relatively lower quality of learning under this setup will result in trillions of pesos in economic losses for the country in the next few decades because students are not learning as well as they should away from classrooms.

Corruption has come back with a vengeance, rearing its ugly head at the height of the pandemic and enriching a few, well-connected personalities at the expense of millions of suffering—and dying—Filipinos during a once-in-a-century global health crisis.

And if those internal problems aren’t enough, the Philippines’ next leader must now face external challenges from China which has been aggressively encroaching on the country’s maritime territory, depriving us of the economic benefits of the sea and tramping on our sovereignty.

All this, and more, must be weighed carefully by each individual voter today against the biases he or she has inevitably formed during three months of being bombarded by candidates’ campaign promises.

At the same time, voters should take his brief period to discern whether the candidates they plan to vote for will be good for the country beyond the six- or three- year term they will be in office.

Perhaps it is not enough that we look at what they will be able to do for us once they win, but how the Philippines will be shaped after they step down by the platforms they’re promoting now.

Will their populist promises of immediate relief from the burdens of daily life result in the country being weighed down by massive debt long after they’re gone?

Will their vows of good governance result in crippling government gridlock that will force citizens to gamble and swing to the other end of the political spectrum once the next elections come around?

Most importantly, will this particular candidate benefit not just the individual voter, his family, or his immediate community, but the entire country, not just in the near future but long after their term ends? Such is the power of one’s vote.

Yes, vote wisely. But every single Filipino voter must make sure that he is, in all good conscience, using the correct definition of “wisely”—that is, the candidate’s win should benefit a wider community, and extend farther into the future.

Subscribe to our daily newsletter

That Filipinos will be living under more difficult political and economic conditions in the next few years is already a given. But this burden can be eased by the knowledge that the electoral choices made tomorrow will result in a better Philippines once the more pressing immediate challenges are overcome.

Fearless views on the news

Disclaimer: Comments do not represent the views of INQUIRER.net. We reserve the right to exclude comments which are inconsistent with our editorial standards. FULL DISCLAIMER

We use cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. By continuing, you are agreeing to our use of cookies. To find out more, please click this link.

You are using an outdated browser. Please upgrade your browser or activate Google Chrome Frame to improve your experience.

Thanks for signing up as a global citizen. In order to create your account we need you to provide your email address. You can check out our Privacy Policy to see how we safeguard and use the information you provide us with. If your Facebook account does not have an attached e-mail address, you'll need to add that before you can sign up.

This account has been deactivated.

Please contact us at [email protected] if you would like to re-activate your account.

Voting is a right often taken for granted in the US. Americans vote in much lower numbers compared to other developed countries, and American youth have one of the lowest voter turnouts in the world.

Marginalized groups — from women to Black people — haven’t always had the right to vote, and laws still try to silence their voices. Not all governments exercise democracy, either. Citizens around the world don’t always have the freedom to appoint their leaders.

Participating in local and federal elections is one way for people to support policies that serve their communities’ needs and ensure they have a say in the decisions that benefit society.

Ahead of the next US election, here are seven facts to get excited about your role in the electoral process.

Nicole Hensel, left, and Raegan Cotton of New Era Colorado work to register college students to vote and answer their voting logistics questions during the pandemic at Auraria Campus in Denver, Colorado on Sept. 22, 2020. Nicole Hensel, left, and Raegan Cotton of New Era Colorado work to register college students to vote and answer their voting logistics questions during the pandemic at Auraria Campus in Denver, Colorado on Sept. 22, 2020. Image: Hyoung Chang/MediaNews Group/The Denver Post/Getty Images

1. Young people play an important role in elections.

Research suggests that if young people voted as much as older citizens, elected officials would be more likely to prioritize the policy issues that are important to them. Young people make up more than one-third of eligible voters , which means they hold a lot of power if they exercise their right to go to the polls. Generation Z, people between the ages of 18 and 23, are also more ethnically and racially diverse than previous generations.

While young people are historically the group least likely to vote for several reasons , either because they lack encouragement and information, or they think they won’t make a difference and find the process too complicated, that's starting to change.

Tufts University's Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) estimated that 31% of eligible people ages 18 to 29 voted in the 2018 midterms — a record turnout at the time. What’s more, almost twice as many millennials voted in 2018 compared to 2014.

In the 2020 presidential election, half of all eligible youth voted in 2020 — an 11-point increase from 2016 , according to CIRCLE.

2. A single vote can make or break an election.

Over the past two decades, more than a dozen races were decided by a single vote or ended in a tie. If enough people vote in your district or county, your ballot can increase your preferred candidate’s chances of winning an election and help get policies passed that reflect your values and your community’s needs.

3. Taking time off isn’t always realistic, but more companies are giving employees flexibility to exercise their civic duty.

In the 2014 midterm elections, 35% of people didn’t vote because of a scheduling conflict. Voting can take as short as 10 minutes or as long as several hours, but in almost half of the country, employees are entitled to take time off to vote. Companies in over 22 states are required to provide paid time off to vote, and in August 2020, several high profile companies announced they’ll offer more flexibility on Election Day.

4. Registering to vote is a big step into adulthood and it’s possible to sign up before 18.

Voting is considered a rite of passage when adolescents turn 18, but many states actually allow registration earlier. Residents in some states can preregister to vote as young as 16 to ensure they are already registered by their 18th birthdays. Select states also let 17-year-olds participate in primary elections.

5. Voting doesn’t have to be inconvenient — many citizens can now vote by mail.

In many states, voting in the 2020 presidential election was as simple as dropping off an envelope at the post office. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, states across the country modified their absentee and mail-in protocols . Meanwhile, five states mandated that everyone vote by mail in the election to avoid the virus’ spread.

6. Democracy can’t function without full participation, and early voting improves turnout.

The rules vary state by state , but when residents have the option to vote early, they can head to the polls at a time that’s convenient for them and avoid lines. South Dakota and Minnesota open up early in-person voting with an absentee ballot as early as 46 days before the general election.

7. Registration complications keep people away from the polls, but signing up online can help guarantee citizens can cast a ballot.

In 2018, college students in Fairfax County, Virginia, who participated in a study reported that they didn’t mail in their absentee ballots because they didn’t know where to buy stamps. Voters who want to avoid any snail mail mishaps and live in any of these 39 states have the option of registering online. Online registration not only minimizes administration costs and data entry errors, but it also improves state voter list accuracy.

Global Citizen and HeadCount have teamed up to engage young Americans to check their voting status, register, and vote. Through the work of this groundbreaking nonpartisan collaboration, we’re activating young people to get involved and spark change in their communities by expressing opinions at the ballot box. Learn how to register to vote , volunteer , and take action right now!

Editor's note : This story was updated on April 25, 2022.

Global Citizen Facts

Demand Equity

7 Election Facts to Show You Why Your Vote Matters

Sept. 1, 2020

What makes a good political leader – and how can we tell before voting?

Senior Lecturer, School of Management, Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa – Massey University

Disclosure statement

Suze Wilson does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa – Massey University provides funding as a member of The Conversation NZ.

Te Kunenga ki Pūrehuroa – Massey University provides funding as a member of The Conversation AU.

View all partners

For many people, voting is not just a right, it’s an act of civic duty. Even more than that, some voters base their decisions on what they believe best serves society as a whole, not what might personally advantage them.

The trick, of course, is how to exercise that vote in a responsible, informed and considered manner. Understanding the policies of different parties is obviously a key part of that, in which case resources such as Policy.nz and Vote Compass can be helpful.

But what of the individual characteristics of candidates and would-be leaders? What can the research tell us about what to look for? Given they are “actors” on the political “stage”, how do we evaluate their performance?

Of course, leadership isn’t a solo act. Many things determine what leaders can and can’t do. But what makes them tick – how their personality or character informs their actions – is enduringly fascinating . In fact, we know a lot about the beliefs, attitudes and behaviours that can help distinguish between good and bad leaders.

Confusing confidence with competence

Given “good” leadership is generally accepted as being both ethical and effective, it stands to reason “bad” leaders tend to fail on one or both counts. They either breach accepted principles of ethical or moral conduct, or they act in ways that detract from achieving desired results.

This distinction helps demystify leadership by highlighting that the qualities we least admire in others are also what scholars have long flagged as danger signs in leaders: arrogance, vanity, dishonesty, manipulation, abuse of power, lack of care for others, cowardice and recklessness.

Read more: Romantic heroes or ‘one of us’ – how we judge political leaders is rarely objective or rational

Notably, though, bad leaders can appear charming, confident and driven to achieve, despite seeking power for selfish reasons.

Numerous studies have identified the ways in which narcissists and what are sometimes called corporate psychopaths can be highly skilled at manipulating people into believing they’ve got what it takes, but will typically lead in destructive and dysfunctional ways. Other studies have shown the negative effects of “ Machiavellian ” leadership styles.

There is also a tendency to confuse competence – the actual knowledge and skills needed to perform a leadership role – with confidence. Good leaders tend to be relatively humble about their abilities and knowledge. This means they’re better listeners, more sensitive to others’ needs, and better able to collaborate effectively.

Read more: America's leaders are older than they've ever been. Why didn't the founding fathers foresee this as a problem?

Practical wisdom

None of this fascination with leadership is new. The Classical Greek philosopher Aristotle argued good leaders possess a range of character virtues in the “middle ground” between what he called the “vices” of excess or deficiency. Courage, for example, is the virtuous mid-point between the vices of recklessness and cowardice.

The modern character virtues leadership researchers emphasise include humanity, humility, integrity, temperance, justice, accountability, courage, transcendence, drive and collaboration.

Each attribute helps a leader deal more effectively with some aspect of their role. Humanity, for instance, enables a leader to be considerate, empathetic and compassionate. Temperance helps them remain calm, composed, patient and prudent, even in testing circumstances.

Deployed together, these character virtues help foster sound judgment, insight, decisiveness – allowing a leader to calmly handle complex, unfolding challenges.

For Aristotle, the ideal leader could demonstrate what he called “phronesis”, or practical wisdom. This wasn’t necessarily about delivering perfect, painless solutions. Indeed, phronesis might mean adopting the least-worst option – which is often the case when dealing with the complex task of running a country.

There is also no single personality “type” most suited to good leadership. But studies indicate those who are proactive, optimistic, believe in themselves and can manage their anxieties stand a better chance. Empathy, a sense of duty and a commitment to upholding positive social values also underpin the attributes of good leaders.

Evaluating political leadership

No leader will be perfect. But each character or personality flaw impedes their capacity for wise judgment and dealing with the demands of their role. A wise leader, therefore, is one who has deep and accurate insight into their personal foibles and has strategies to mitigate for those tendencies.

Political leaders will obviously seek to present their policies, parties and themselves in a positive light, something known as “ impression management ”. This is where critical questioning and fact checking by journalists and experts can play a vital role.

Read more: NZ Election 2023: from one-way polls to threats of coalition ‘chaos’, it’s been a campaign of two halves

But gauging a leader’s “true” personality or character is more difficult. And we first need to be aware that our impressions and evaluations of leaders are not entirely driven by reason or logic.

Secondly, we can look for recurring patterns of behaviour in different situations over time. We should pay particular heed to behaviour under pressure, when it becomes more difficult to “mask” true feelings and motives.

Thirdly, we can consider the values that underpin a leader’s policies, who benefits from them, and what messages these convey to the community at large.

In the long run, a leader’s results bear consideration. But we need to assess these fairly, accounting for what was beyond their control. We should be mindful to avoid “ hindsight bias ” – the tendency to imagine events were predictable because we know they’ve occurred.

It should be no surprise that what constitutes good leadership has been studied and debated for thousands of years. Leaders have power and we’ve always wanted them to use it wisely. An informed voting choice makes that more likely.

New Zealand
NZ Election 2023

Education Abroad Advisor

Head of School: Engineering, Computer and Mathematical Sciences

Educational Designer

Organizational Behaviour – Assistant / Associate Professor (Tenure-Track)

Apply for State Library of Queensland's next round of research opportunities

15 Reasons Why You Should Vote in the US Election

Every four years, the United States holds an election for president. Congressional elections occur every two years, while various state and local elections happen every year. While some rules vary, you’re typically eligible to vote if you’re a U.S. citizen, meet state residency requirements, register to vote, and are 18 years old on or before Election Day. Why is it important to vote? In this article, we’ll explore 15 reasons why you should vote in US elections, including elections in 2024.

#	Point
1	Voting impacts the future
2	Voting isn’t a right Americans have always had
3	Voting rights are threatened
4	Voting is important for civic engagement
5	Voting is important in a representative government
6	Voting holds politicians accountable
7	Voting has local impacts
8	Voting helps you stay informed
9	Voting impacts international relations
10	The US is in danger
11	Democracy is at stake
12	Climate change
13	Reproductive rights
14	Immigration
15	LGBTQ+ rights

#1. Voting impacts the future

In the US, one person gets one vote. It may feel like your vote doesn’t matter. What can one person do to change the future? Voting for things you believe in does matter. The main reason is that when people organize around an issue and all make their voices heard, society changes. The other reason is that while your vote can feel meaningless in federal elections, it has a huge impact on smaller, local races. NPR listed a series of races determined by just a few votes , like a 2017 Virginia House of Delegates race. The election was a tie. Officials chose the winner by pulling a name out of a bowl. The Republican was declared the winner, giving the party control of the state House by just one seat. If one more person had shown up to vote in that race, the winner wouldn’t have come down to random chance.

#2. Voting isn’t a right Americans have always had

Millions of Americans vote in elections, but in the past , the number of those eligible was much smaller. In 1789, the U.S. Constitution didn’t even detail specific voting rights, instead leaving it up to the states. Most states only let white, male landowners vote. In 1868, the 14th Amendment established birthright and naturalized citizenship. While the amendment also gave freed enslaved people and Black people citizenship, they still weren’t given voting rights until two years later. Women weren’t given the right to vote until 1920, and in 1965, the Voting Rights Act passed, finally providing more voting right protections. Many people take voting for granted, but it’s the result of centuries of activism and progress.

#3. Voting rights are under threat, and voting can help protect them

Even after years of positive change, voting rights are still under threat. Things like gerrymandering , which is the redrawing of district lines to favor one party over the other, and stricter eligibility requirements are undemocratic. According to a piece from Human Rights Watch, voting rights are also threatened by misinformation, election interference and the intimidation of election officials. In 2023, at least 14 states passed laws making voting harder. Everyone eligible should take advantage of their right to vote and make it clear they want their representatives to protect voting rights. The right to vote is something everyone, regardless of their other beliefs, should fight for.

#4. Voting is an important tool for civic engagement

According to Robert Longley on ThoughtCatalog, civic engagement is “participating in activities intended to improve the quality of life in one’s community.” That includes political activities like voting, as well as non-political activities like volunteering at nonprofits, contributing to food banks, cleaning up public spaces and much more. When everyone participates in civic engagement, more problems are solved, people are more educated on issues in their communities and politicians are held to higher standards. While voting is just one aspect of civic engagement, it’s one of the most important.

#5. Voting is essential to a representative government

In a pure democracy, every American would be responsible for writing legislation, but the US uses a representative form of government. The nation is technically a “ republic ,” which is a form of government where voters choose representatives. These representatives then write and establish laws. A representative government is only successful if as many people as possible vote. This helps create a government truly based on what the people want and need.

#6. Voting holds politicians accountable

Politicians often get a bad rap, and often for good reason. Some get into government just for the money, power, business connections and other perks, while even politicians who started with good intentions can turn their backs on their constituents. When a politician fails to represent the best interests of voters, gets involved in a scandal, or is otherwise doing an unsatisfactory job, voting is the best way to hold them accountable. Before an election, you can make it clear you won’t vote for a politician unless they take certain actions on the issues you care about. If they fail to meet your standards, you can vote them out.

#7. Voting in local elections has direct impacts

Federal elections get the most coverage in the United States, but it’s the smaller state and county-level ones that have the most direct impacts on individual voters. Things like school funding and tax increases are determined locally, so if you want to make your voice heard, you should vote in local elections. As an example, a county in Oregon recently approved a school levy that will pay for classroom teachers and keep class sizes “steady” for the next five years. Homeowners were asked to pay $1.63 out of every $1,000 of assessed property value. Measures like this have a clear impact, so every affected voter should participate in the final decision.

#8. Voting impacts international relations

The outcomes of local elections arguably impact individuals more than federal elections, but that doesn’t mean big elections aren’t important, too. Congress and the president make decisions that affect the country as well as the world. According to the BBC, the US is the “world’s most foremost economic and military power.” It provides ⅕ of the United Nation’s entire budget, while it spent over $816 billion on defense in 2023. On a cultural level, the United States is also one of the most influential nations. By voting and staying engaged politically, you can have a say in the United States’ impact on international relations.

#9. Voting helps you stay informed on issues

Politics can be stressful and confusing. Many people don’t pay close attention to all the issues, so when elections come around, they don’t vote because they don’t feel informed. It’s never too late! When elections are approaching, take a little time to research the candidates and ballot measures in your area. Resources like Ballotpedia , which provides unbiased information on policy, politics and elections, are useful because they’re accessible and free. You don’t have to understand everything about an issue to have an opinion, so use election time to get just enough information to feel comfortable voting.

#10. The United States, which is facing more threats, needs informed voters

As we described earlier, voting rights have been under threat lately, but that’s not the only reason the United States is struggling. America is facing worsening climate change effects, rising homelessness rates , and more bankruptcies , among other issues. Experts have also expressed alarm with the Republican Party’s shift toward authoritarianism. Former president Donald Trump, who is currently the leading Republican candidate and defendant in four criminal cases, has talked about wanting to be a dictator “for one day ” and indicting political opponents, who he’s called “vermin,” if re-elected. Everyone eligible should vote if they care about where the United States is headed.

#11. Many experts – and voters – believe the future of democracy is at stake

Democracy is never a guarantee, but it’s become a central issue for the United States in recent years. According to the Brookings Institution, “democratic erosion” has two main sources: election manipulation and executive overreach. Donald Trump’s attempt to undermine the results of the 2020 election is the clearest example, but state legislatures have been making it harder to vote for years. When polled, Americans are concerned about the future of democracy. According to one survey, 62% of adults believed democracy will be threatened based on who wins the 2024 presidential elections. With the stakes so high, voting is more important than ever.

#12. Climate issues are on the ballot

Climate change is the world’s most serious problem, and as reports from groups like the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change continue to confirm, human activity is driving climate change. Countries like the United States bear the most responsibility. Every election has consequences for climate change policy, so it’s one of the most compelling reasons to vote. Research what candidates on a county, state and federal level believe about climate change and what they plan to do.

#13. Many elections involve reproductive rights

In 2022, the Supreme Court overturned Roe. v. Wade , taking away the federal right to abortion and flipping it back to the states. Several ballot measures either protecting or restricting abortion rights have come up. According to Ballotpedia, Maryland and New York will vote on ballot measures involving reproductive rights in November 2024, while others will no doubt emerge. A politician’s stance on reproductive rights and plans to address them matter more than ever, so it’s important to consider these rights when voting.

#14. Immigration is another important issue

The United States has more immigrants than any other country. The system is overwhelmed. According to NPR, as many as 10,000 people a day reach the US-Mexico border. Immigrants from other places, often forced by conflict and climate change to move, are also arriving in larger and larger numbers. Both of America’s main political parties – the Republicans and Democrats – have struggled to respond, leading to issues like inhumane conditions, family separations, hateful rhetoric and much more. Who Americans elect and what legislation they approve of matter, so immigration is another good reason to vote.

#15. LGBTQ+ rights need protection

According to NBC, 75 anti-LGBTQ+ bills became law in 2023. They include restrictions on transition care for minors, bans on transgender athletes from school sports, limits on teaching about LGBTQ+ issues and more. While those 75 laws represent just 15% of the 500 proposed anti-LGBTQ+ laws proposed in 2023, they still have a significant impact. In a piece for Them , Nico Lang lays out how Republican politicians will continue to threaten LGBTQ+ rights while expanding their fight against transition care to adults. Ballotpedia already lists six ballot measures involving LGBTQ+ rights that will need voter approval in 2024. If you care about LGBTQ+ rights, voting is one of the best ways to protect them.

Academia in Times of Genocide: Why are Students Across the World Protesting?

Pinkwashing 101: Definition, History, Examples

15 Inspiring Quotes for Black History Month

10 Inspiring Ways Women Are Fighting for Equality

15 Trusted Charities Fighting for Clean Water

15 Trusted Charities Supporting Trans People

15 Political Issues We Must Address

15 Trusted Charities Fighting for LGBTQ+ Rights

16 Inspiring Civil Rights Leaders You Should Know

15 Trusted Charities Fighting for Housing Rights

15 Examples of Gender Inequality in Everyday Life

11 Approaches to Alleviate World Hunger

About the author, emmaline soken-huberty.

Emmaline Soken-Huberty is a freelance writer based in Portland, Oregon. She started to become interested in human rights while attending college, eventually getting a concentration in human rights and humanitarianism. LGBTQ+ rights, women’s rights, and climate change are of special concern to her. In her spare time, she can be found reading or enjoying Oregon’s natural beauty with her husband and dog.

Why People should Vote Essay

To find inspiration for your paper and overcome writer’s block
As a source of information (ensure proper referencing)
As a template for you assignment

People vote depending on their preferences. Since voting is optional, there are individuals who usually do not vote. They evade voting due to ignorance of the importance of the democratic process. Electors should acquaint themselves with constructive rationales for voting caring leaders.

Firstly, one reason for voting is that every vote is vital. People vote to avoid letting others decide for them who will lead them. They understand that a single vote can determine the winner of an election. There are instances that winners have been settled on by a single vote. In some cases, leaders have been decided by a flip of a coin (Willett). People, therefore, vote to exercise their civil rights and influence the outcome of elections.

Subsequently, people vote to protect their health. A number of electors understand that an elected leader has the power to determine the value of health care insurance they would get (Willett). They want quality healthy care services but do not want to be over taxed. They vote leaders who will provide affordable heath care services. Women also can abort after a few judges rule that it is legally acceptable. Electors who are not pleased with such life threatening decision made by a few individuals would prefer to vote in pro-life leaders(Willett).

Another reason for voting is to protect historical interests. This means people vote to honor those who fought of their voting rights and human freedoms in the community. In the past, adults younger than twenty-one years, members of minority communities, and women did not have the right to vote.

Patriotic citizens sacrificed to fight laws that were holding them captive. People vote in honor of these heroes. The idea behind this reason is if one sacrifices his/her life to fight for others, then people feel the rights are highly essential, and they do not ignore to exercise the rights. They vote to decide who among the historical heroes represented their interests (Willett).

Moreover, people vote to decide the destiny of their children and dependants. They decide the destiny of the future generations. This is because leaders make choices that influence both current and future lifestyles (Hardcastle). The laws enacted in parliament regarding education, investment, and the right to life determines the lifestyle other generations will lead.

Therefore, many people vote to secure a bright future for their children, grandchildren, and the preceding generations. In addition, they vote to lead by example. A parent, older sibling, or friend demonstrates responsibility by voting. When members of the younger generations learn that their older siblings or relatives are voting, they may become lifelong voters(Willett).

In addition, people also vote to lose the right to complain. In spite of the outcome of an election, voting helps electors to gain psychological sense of satisfaction (Hardcastle). After voting, they feel that they have played their roles. They also feel to be part of the future.

This motive makes people discover their political strengths and weakness. They also learn about democracy and its benefits. Without voting, it is not possible to know candidates’ political strengths and weaknesses. People vote to enjoy their patriotic rights and feel recognized.

People also vote to save money. The government collects taxes to manage public projects. Every person pays a fraction of his/her salary or income from investments to the government. Therefore, people vote to elect politicians who they can trust with their money. They vote to get roads, police officers, and doctors, but not to over pay taxes. The manner of management of bond issues and proposition also determine how much property taxes people have to pay.

As another key point, people vote to save the world. There are numerous emerging global problems. Voters understand that electing visionary candidates can save the entire globe. Global warming is one of the global challenges that need redress (Willett).

In addition to voting to have leaders that take care of economic factors and energy requirements, people vote to protect the environment. Lobby groups do a marvelous work in the campaign for the protection of the environment. Nonetheless, they also vote. Lobby groups vote because they are determined to have governments that address environmental issues effectively.

The other reason for voting is the need to defend personal social a gender (Willett). Politicians enact Acts of parliament to restrict and protect social freedoms. Some of the freedoms legislators may put restriction on include prayer in schools, homosexuality, and marriage. Those who have concerns regarding any of the social laws do not vote candidates who cannot defend their rights. They vote candidates who can positively influence the social direction of life in the country.

Conclusively, there are several reasons for voting, but these are the key ones. Some people base their reasons on misconceptions. However, due to modernization, many people have access to information and easily make up their minds positively. People should investigate their true preferences to discover their rationales for voting. This will help them elect leaders with the people’s interests at heart.

Works Cited

Hardcastle, Mike . “Top 5 Reasons Youth Should Vote.” Teen Advice – Advice and Community For Teens . N.p., n.d. Web.

Willett, Brian. “Reasons to Vote in Elections | eHow.com.” Demand Media, Inc., n.d. Web.

Robocalls in Canada Elections
Sarah Palin in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election
Online Voting and Corporate Social Responsibility
Hobby Lobby Stores Inc.’s Mission
United States National Presidential Elections
Discreditation of Michele Bachmann Actions During the Election
Canadian Electoral System
USA Presidential Election
Forms of Presidential Primaries and the Effects of Front-Loading
Voting Rights in the US
Chicago (A-D)
Chicago (N-B)

IvyPanda. (2018, November 20). Why People should Vote. https://ivypanda.com/essays/why-people-should-vote/

"Why People should Vote." IvyPanda , 20 Nov. 2018, ivypanda.com/essays/why-people-should-vote/.

IvyPanda . (2018) 'Why People should Vote'. 20 November.

IvyPanda . 2018. "Why People should Vote." November 20, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/why-people-should-vote/.

1. IvyPanda . "Why People should Vote." November 20, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/why-people-should-vote/.

Bibliography

IvyPanda . "Why People should Vote." November 20, 2018. https://ivypanda.com/essays/why-people-should-vote/.

New releases
All articles
Work with us
Meet the team
Our impact and credibility

If you care about social impact, why is voting important?

Your civic duty isn't the only reason your vote matters.

By Robert Wiblin · Published October 2020

Like (opens in new window)
Tweet (opens in new window)
Share (opens in new window)
Save to Pocket Pocket (opens in new window)

If you care about social impact, why is voting important?

On this page:.

Introduction
1 Why is voting important? It’s not just about civic duty.
2 The probability of one vote changing an election
3 Governments are so large which raises the expected value of voting
4 What if you’re wrong?
5 Is deciding how to vote too much effort?
6 How much does it cost to drive one extra vote?
7 Overall, is it altruistic to vote?

Could one vote — your vote — swing an entire election? Most of us abandoned this seeming fantasy not too long after we learned how elections work.

But the chances are higher than you might think. If you’re in a competitive district in a competitive election, the odds that your vote will flip a national election often fall between 1 in 1 million and 1 in 10 million.

That’s a very small probability, but it’s big compared to your chances of winning the lottery, and it’s big relative to the enormous impact governments can have on the world.

Each four years the United States federal government allocates $17,500,000,000,000, so a 1 in 10 million chance of changing the outcome of a US national election gives an average American some degree of influence over $1.75 million.

That means the expected importance of voting — the probability of changing an election’s result multiplied by the impact if you do — might, depending on your personal circumstances, be very high.

This could, in itself, be a good argument for voting.

Fortunately there is a significant amount of academic research on the importance of elections and how likely one vote is to change the outcome, so I’ve pulled it together to estimate the average value of one vote for the right person.

The answer, as you might expect, depends a great deal on the circumstances of any given election, and indeed most votes predictably have no impact.

But there are common situations in which the expected value of casting a vote will be far higher than anything else you could hope to do in the same amount of time.

Why exactly? Let me explain.

Table of Contents

Why is voting important? It’s not just about civic duty.

In this article, we’ll demonstrate that, for many people, voting is important, but not (or at least not only) because of the normal arguments about it being your civic duty.

Your vote could actually change the world for the better, and if you’re in a competitive race the chances are high enough that you should think hard about hitting the voting booth.

First I’ll investigate the two key things that determine the impact of your vote:

The chances of your vote changing an election’s outcome in a range of different situations
How much better some candidates are for the world as a whole, compared to others

Then I’ll discuss what I think are the best arguments against the importance of voting elections:

If an election is competitive, that means other people disagree about which option is better, and you’re at some risk of voting for the worse candidate by mistake.
While voting itself doesn’t take long, knowing enough to accurately pick which candidate is better for the world actually does take substantial effort — effort that could be better allocated elsewhere.

Finally we’ll look into the impact of donating to campaigns or working to ‘get out the vote’, which can be effective ways to generate additional votes for your preferred candidate.

We’ll use figures for United States presidential elections, because they have an unusually large impact on our priority problems , more of our readers are American citizens than any other single nationality, and more work has been done to model them than other kinds of elections. However, similar reasoning can be applied to elections in other countries.

The probability of one vote changing an election

Given how infrequently national elections are won by one vote, we can’t just look at the historical record and observe the fraction for which that’s true. While we do have examples of large tied elections , there’ll never be enough real-life elections to accurately determine their frequency empirically.

We need a different approach: statistical modelling.

To see how the method works, we can start small. Imagine that you’re on a small committee making a decision. The odds that you’ll change the outcome of a vote like that — assuming 2 options and 4 other voters, each 50% likely to vote for either option — is about 19% . We could confirm that empirically if we liked.

We can then work upwards to the size of national elections: with 8 voters it’s 14% , with 16 voters it’s about 10%, with 32 voters about 7%, and so on. In fact, the likelihood you’ll change the outcome ends up being roughly proportional to one over the square root of the number of voters.

Statisticians who specialise in politics add real polling data to the mix, and compare it to actual election results to figure out how accurately polling predicts how people will vote. This gives them a ‘probability distribution’ for the likelihood that each elector will choose to vote for each candidate.

With all of this information in hand, we can go ahead and model tens of billions of elections to estimate how often the entire result will be changed by a single vote.

The famous statistician Andrew Gelman of Columbia University has done just this for US presidential elections, which are broken down into states, and has published several papers outlining the results. 1 2

He found that if you’re in a ‘safe state’ like California, the odds of your vote changing the outcome of a presidential election really is effectively zero (the model spits out 1 in 100 trillion, but it’s very hard to assign meaningful probabilities to something so unlikely). Something similar would be true for voters in ‘very safe seats’ in the UK or Australia.

By contrast, in a small US state polling around 50/50 in a close election nationally — for instance New Mexico, Iowa, or New Hampshire in the 2000 elections — the probability could get as high as 1 in 3 million. (The article Vote for Charity’s Sake offers a nice overview of this research, and we’ve stuck some details in this footnote.)

In a wider range of ‘tipping point states’ in reasonably close elections, the probability is lower, and closer to 1 in 10 million.

(Note that what matters isn’t the state in which polling is closest, but rather the states that might put someone over the edge of winning the election as a whole — the ‘tipping point state’. If one candidate is ahead nationally then they’ll probably be ahead in the ‘tipping point state’ too.)

As of October 14 2020, Joe Biden’s substantial lead in public opinion polls means Gelman’s modelling indicates that there are only four states where the odds of one vote changing the outcome is greater than 1 in 10 million: New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan. 3

However, a perhaps unexpected finding is that even when an election doesn’t look that close, the probability of one vote changing the outcome in a potential ‘tipping point state’ rarely falls to less than half of what it would be in a close-seeming election. This is shown visually in the figure below from FiveThirtyEight’s election modelling. The underlying reason is that opinion polls are often off by a large margin, so when an election is close on election day we can’t rule out that it will be a blow-out for one side — and, similarly, even when a candidate seems to be substantially ahead, we can’t confidently rule out the election being close.

Is voting important? We can look at simulations to see how likely your vote is to matter. Here is a 538 simulation of Electoral College outcomes for the 2020 American Presidential Election.

In the UK or Australia, an equivalent analysis would look at the likelihood that a party gains a majority in parliament by one seat, and that that seat is won by one vote.

The factors that push up the leverage of each voter are:

An election being close to 50/50 nationally
An election being close to 50/50 in a given ‘tipping point’ seat or voting region
Being able to accurately determine which elections are closest
Being able to accurately identify which seats or regions are closest (in which case expected influence becomes concentrated in those places)
Fewer total voters

Australia has a tenth as many voters as the US, and the UK has a fifth — which, all else equal, would make each vote 2-3x more likely to flip the outcome of a close election. 4 Polling is similarly precise in all of these different countries. And the likely ‘tipping point’ seats in US, UK and Australian elections all contain a similar fraction of the population — 10 to 20% — so power is concentrated in a similarly-sized subset of voters.

So from the above we can anticipate that in a similarly tight election, in a ‘tipping point seat’, the odds of a vote changing the outcome would be a few times higher in those countries than in the US.

A similar analysis can be applied to any sort of election.

A common objection to this line of reasoning is that if an election is as close as one vote, it will be re-run or decided by the courts anyway, and so a single vote can never actually make a difference.

To see how this is mistaken, you need to conceptualise the vote margin in large elections as shifting the probability of each candidate winning. If you’re ahead, each extra vote makes you more likely to win without a court battle or a re-run. And if you’re narrowly behind, each extra vote increases your chances of successfully disputing the result. So long as we’re unsure what the vote margin will be, the expected impact of each extra vote remains the same as it would be if all its impact were entirely concentrated on a perfectly tied election.

Finally, there’s another quite different way one can model the impact that each vote has, but it won’t much change our conclusion, so for simplicity I’ll leave it in this footnote. 5

Alright, now that we have a sense of the likelihood of swinging an election, we need to know how valuable it would be to do so.

Governments are so large which raises the expected value of voting

Compared to the likelihood of a vote changing the outcome of an election, how much it matters who wins i) is harder to quantify, ii) depends more on your values, and iii) varies widely depending on the candidates running for office. But a quick scan of the numbers and issues at stake suggests that the impact will often be substantial.

In most rich countries, governments tax and spend 25-55% of a country’s GDP. As a rule of thumb, you can roughly think of them as directing a third of a country’s income.

That’s enough money per person, and per vote, that positively influencing how it’s spent can be important enough to offset the low chances of any given vote swinging an election.

Again using US to illustrate, over the next four years 6 the US federal government will spend about $17.5 trillion .

Written out as a number it looks like $17,500,000,000,000. That’s $53,000 for each American, or $129,000 for each vote cast in 2016.

If you multiply all that spending through a 1 in 10 million chance of changing the outcome, in a swing state like New Hampshire, it comes to $1.75 million. That’s the fraction of the budget you might ‘expect’ to influence by voting in a swing state, in the statistical sense of expectation .

If that number sounds unexpectedly large, remember that we’re shifting around roughly a third of the economy’s output, over several years, and we’re concentrating on the impact a voter can have if they’re among the privileged 20% of the country that lives in a state which can plausibly determine the election outcome.

In the US’s state-based system, 80% of eligible voters can’t hope to change the outcome — but that leaves the remaining 20% with 5 times the leverage they’d have otherwise.

Of course, much of the US federal budget is quite stable, but keep in mind that stickiness in how money gets spent cuts both ways: it makes it harder to shift the budget, but if you do, it means those changes will probably stay around for longer.

It’s common for parties to want to shift how several percent of GDP gets spent. But the budget doesn’t even have to be that flexible for your impact to matter.

For example, if one party will spend 0.5% of GDP on foreign aid, and the other will spend 0.3%, a vote with a 1 in 10 million chance of changing the outcome would shift — in expectation — $17,800 into foreign aid.

There are other kinds of government spending that can have huge impacts as well: R&D into new clean energy technologies is probably one of the most cost-effective ways to limit climate change, and think about the enormous return the world is getting from countries like the UK that decided, years ago, to fund preliminary research into coronavirus vaccines.

But choosing which taxes to impose and how to spend the money raised is just one thing the government does, one which happens to be easy to quantify in dollar terms.

There are major non-budgetary impacts as well, which include:

Foreign policy: Elected governments decide things such as how much to trade with foreigners (which can affect their wellbeing too), how much to raise tensions with other countries in pursuit of foreign policy goals, and ultimately whether to go to war. Foreign policy is often determined without a lot of input from legislatures, which means a few elected officials have substantial discretion — and that’s especially important for countries with large militaries or nuclear weapons.
Stabilising the business cycle: Governments work to raise total spending during recessions and decrease total spending when inflation is too high, in order to limit excessive ups and downs in the economy.
Regulations: Elected governments make decisions about all sorts of regulations, for instance on consumer products, workplace conditions, environmental standards, and so on.
Immigration: Elected governments decide how many foreigners can come live in a country and on what basis, ranging from skilled migrants, to economic migrants, to political refugees.
Social freedoms: Elected governments can influence whether LGBTQ+ people can be public about their sexual orientation and whether they can get married, which recreational drugs people are free to use, how police go about enforcing laws, whether voluntary euthanasia is permitted, and so on.
Political freedom: Elected governments can try to entrench themselves, or reduce the ability of the public to reflect on political questions, by harassing political opponents, being generally misleading, shutting down hostile media outlets, or making it harder for people to vote.

Measuring the social impact of the different approaches governments might take to these issues is difficult. But it could easily be more important than the shifts in spending that result from a change in government.

To illustrate, imagine that you think the chance of a nuclear war over four years under one presidential candidate is 1 in 1,000, and the chance with the other is 1 in 500. While highly uncertain, these probabilities are both figures nuclear security specialists might give if you asked them about the likelihood of nuclear war. How valuable would it be to vote for the safer leader?

To answer this, we can think about how much society would be willing to pay to avoid a nuclear war. It’s really hard to estimate, but let’s spitball it and say that each US resident would be willing to pay $1 million to avoid dying in a nuclear war, on average. (For comparison, the US government will spend about $7 million or so to save a life.) A total nuclear war would kill around 80% of the US population. 7 If you do the math, then a vote with a 1 in 10 million chance of changing the election outcome would be worth $25,000 to your fellow citizens through its effects on the likelihood of a nuclear war alone. And a nuclear war would obviously also affect people overseas, as well as untold future generations.

The policies which are most impactful are not always the most salient. George W. Bush’s famous choice to pursue the Iraq War resulted in the removal of Saddam Hussein, though at the cost of hundreds of thousands of civilian lives and trillions of dollars in spending. 8 But President Bush also dramatically raised US spending on antiviral drugs for impoverished victims of HIV in Africa. This ‘PEPFAR’ program probably would not have been pursued in his absence, and likely prevented several million deaths .

Though the above is not a systematic survey, and some examples are atypical, to me they suggest that the outcome of elections will often have significant consequences.

Of course, not every election is that important. Sometimes all the candidates likely to win an election are similarly good overall, or if one of them is better it’s hard to figure out which it is.

In particular, within some electoral systems — for instance those with compulsory voting and electoral candidates chosen by politicians or party professionals — the tendency for parties to strategically bunch together in the middle of the political spectrum is strong.

More stark differences tend to arise in places with low voter turnout, few checks on executive power, plurality voting along with more than 2 viable candidates, and party primaries in which only the most motivated voters participate. In those elections the differences between candidates tend to be larger, meaning it’s more often important for the right group to win, and it’s easier to tell which group that is.

What if you’re wrong?

So far I’ve argued that voting can represent a great opportunity for social impact if:

You’re in a close district in a close election
There is a noticeable difference in the desirability of different candidates winning

But there’s a sophisticated argument against this view:

You can only swing an election if roughly as many people are voting for the outcome you prefer as the outcome you oppose. But if the public as a whole is roughly split down the middle, why should you trust your own judgement on the matter? Sure, you’ve looked into it and think that your view is right. But so have many other voters and about half of them still disagree with you. So because there’s no principled reason to trust your judgement over that of others, even after doing your political research you should still think you’re only about 50% likely to be voting the right way.

This is an application of the case for epistemic modesty , and it has some bite. If you think half of your fellow voters are getting things wrong, why should you think you’re getting it right?

This uncertainty about whether you’re truly voting the right way reduces the expected value of voting. If you had no confidence at all in your judgement — in other words, if you thought you were as likely to be wrong as you were to be right — the expected value would fall all the way to zero.

However, to go as far as that this case for intellectual modesty requires that other voters be your ‘epistemic peers’ — basically that they be as smart, informed, honest, and motivated as you. And there are a number of reasons you might think you can cast a ballot more wisely and altruistically than average.

First, the level of information most voters have about politics and policy is quite low. Some typical examples in the US, taken from Ilya Somin’s 2013 book Democracy and Political Ignorance include:

“A survey before the 2014 election … found that only 38 percent of Americans knew that the Republicans controlled the House of Representatives at the time, and the same number knew that the Democrats had a majority in the Senate. Not knowing which party controls these institutions makes it difficult for voters to assign credit or blame for their performance.”

“For years, there has been an ongoing debate over the future of federal spending… Yet a 2014 survey found that only 20 percent of Americans realize that the federal government spends more money on Social Security than on foreign aid, transportation, and interest on the government debt. Some 33 percent believe that foreign aid is the biggest item on this list, even though it is actually the smallest, amounting to about one percent of the federal budget, compared with 17 percent for Social Security.”

“In 1964, in the midst of the Cold War, only 38 percent were aware that the Soviet Union was not a member of the U.S-led NATO alliance.”

This should not be surprising and in my view is no reason to think poorly of your fellow citizens. People have jobs to do, family members to take care of, and personal projects to pursue. For most folks, following the ins and outs of policy debates is neither easy nor rewarding, and because they don’t live in close districts it’s not the best way for them to improve the world, either. On top of that, following the news can be bad for people’s focus and mental health .

While the polling above appears dismal, there is an active academic debate about how problematic it really is for voters to lack the basic knowledge they would seemingly need to vote wisely. The damage is partly reduced by uninformed voters making different random errors that cancel out, people using heuristics like ‘am I better off than I was four years ago’, and politicians paying attention to things voters are more likely to know (e.g. ‘I want better healthcare’) while ignoring their views on things they won’t (e.g. how best to organise a healthcare system).

Nonetheless, for our purposes the fact remains that simply looking up basic background information — like who is in government, where different parties or people stand on the issues, what experts say about those issues when surveyed, and so on — will give you a big edge over others when it comes to determining which candidate will produce better outcomes.

If you’re trying to figure out how best to treat a disease you have, it’s one thing to think you can do better than your doctor, and quite another to think you can do better than a random stranger.

Secondly, if you’ve read this article to this point, you’re likely unusually interested in figuring out which election outcome is best for the world as a whole.

But not all voters focus on that question. Some always vote for the same party as a matter of habit, without giving much thought to the expected impact on the world. Others care about which outcome is best for them and their family, or the country in which they live. Others vote to express their ideals, or their loyalty to a group, or just for fun.

If you truly aspire to vote for the outcome that is ideal for the whole world, considering everyone’s wellbeing in an impartial way, you are more likely to succeed at that goal than the many other voters who aren’t even trying.

Finally, even if it were individually rational to decide there’s no value in trying to figure out the right way to vote because of ‘epistemic modesty’, the approach would foster collective laziness — leading all voters to be less informed than they otherwise would be, and likely worsening political outcomes. That would make it strange to recommend it to you all as a general policy.

Overall, while the risk of mistakenly voting for the wrong candidate reduces the value of voting, I don’t think it reduces it dramatically — at least not in the most important cases, where the difference between your options is a stark one.

If you think your research can get you to be 75% confident about which candidate is better, that is half as valuable as being 100% confident you’re making the right decision.

Is deciding how to vote too much effort?

While we haven’t been able to place a clear dollar value on a vote in a close district in a close election, we saw that in the United States each of those votes influences more than a million dollars worth of government spending, and could have the same or greater impact in other ways.

This suggests that a vote for someone who substantially increases the value of that spending — or otherwise improves government policy — could be worth the equivalent of tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars to your fellow citizens.

If you divide that by the time it takes to vote — minutes in some countries, hours in others — this looks like a great opportunity to do good.

Compare it to earning money to give to the very best charity you can find: even if you assume that the organisation can turn $1 into something as valuable as giving other people in your country $100, you’d need to be able to give ~$1,000 in an hour to make it as valuable as a vote worth $100,000.

But the true cost of voting is much more than the time it takes to vote. In practice you need to do the research described above to figure out who is best to vote for. This additional effort substantially reduces the good you can do per hour.

Some people will follow politics and policy and form views about who it is best to vote for regardless. For them, figuring out how to vote is not an additional cost beyond what they are doing anyway. They may even find the process fun or energising.

But others don’t like politics and wouldn’t spend any time on it unless they felt it was their responsibility to do so. For them we can think of each hour spent deciding who to vote for as substituting for an hour of work or study that they could have otherwise directed towards improving the world.

How long does it take to decide how to vote? That will depend a lot on the election and how difficult it is to analyse the issues at stake. In some countries one party is clearly far more focused on the wellbeing of the world as a whole, or simply far more competent, than the other. But in other countries it’s legitimately hard to tell what outcome will be best.

Hypothetically, we can imagine someone who doesn’t follow politics at all between elections, and then tunes in to make a decision on who to vote for, and starts reading to try to make an informed choice. If this would require them to do the equivalent of a week’s work, it would increase the effective cost of voting 10-100 fold.

If they’re in a high-impact job already, working to solve a pressing global problem, it would be easy to see how it could be better for them to remain focused on the work in which they’re most specialised, and leave politics to others. Depending on someone’s salary, working for a week and donating the money to an effective charity could also easily be more impactful than doing research and then casting a vote.

If you’re short of time, I can think of two shortcuts you could use to quickly cast a vote that’s more likely to be for the right person than the wrong one.

The first is just to find someone you think is bright, shares your values, and follows politics more than you do, and ask them who to vote for.

The second is to look at opinion polling globally. Even if your country is split down the middle, the world as a whole might very strongly prefer one candidate, 9 which is a very important piece of information from an ‘epistemic modesty’ perspective. Foreigners don’t get to vote in other countries’ elections, but they too have preferences about the outcome, are affected by the results, and their outside perspective might even give them insights that locals are missing.

Regardless, one thing to remember is that it will be easiest to tell which candidate is best to vote for in an election in which the difference is large — and these are also the elections in which a vote is of greatest value.

Another is that political participation is open to anyone who, for one reason or another, doesn’t have an especially impactful job at the time.

It’s hard to give general advice here, because in addition to all the variables like election closeness discussed above, individual voter’s opportunity costs vary a great deal. But if I had to give a rule I would say:

If you already follow politics well enough to vote wisely (and you’d vote in a close election, etc.), it will often make sense to vote.

If you wouldn’t follow politics except in order to have a social impact, and you have the opportunity to instead spend the requisite time specialising in a high-impact job working on a pressing problem , or earning to give for effective charities, or something similar, that will often be the better option.

How much does it cost to drive one extra vote?

What if you think the outcome of an election is important enough that you want to do more than just vote yourself?

For most of us, the low hanging fruit is to contact friends and family in competitive districts, encourage them to vote, and make the case for our preferred candidate. Unsurprisingly research shows that personal appeals from friends and family have a big impact, and have 10 times or more than the effect of an appeal from a stranger.

But having exhausted your friends, you might decide you want to give money to a campaign as well. How much do you have to give to get your candidate one extra vote?

With billions of dollars spent on political advocacy in the US each year, this has been the focus of substantial research. Campaigns can randomly target ‘get out the vote’ efforts on some voters and not others, and then see how much more likely those voters are to show up.

This table from the 2015 edition of Get Out The Vote summarises the results of those sort of experiments, with the cost per vote in the final column:

Is it important to get others to vote? Here is a table of cost-effectiveness estimates of various interventions to get out the vote.

According to these studies, for those methods shown to work — such as door-knocking or phone-banking — persuading one stranger to vote for your preferred candidate costs $30-100, or a few hours of work as a volunteer.

If, having compared the candidates and the closeness of the election, you think a vote for the right person is in some sense worth thousands of dollars, that sounds pretty good. However, it has to be compared to the best alternative ways to use your money to improve the world, which may also offer a huge return on investment.

On top of that I’ve been advised by researchers I trust, who have investigated the topic in detail, that these figures are underestimates, at least for the big elections you’re most likely to follow.

That’s for multiple reasons. One is that all results in social science tend to look weaker over time as they’re scrutinised and people attempt to replicate them.

Another is that political campaigns, at least in the US, have more money for each voter they’re chasing than they did in the past. New technologies also make them better at targeting the voters most likely to be convinced. As a result, swing voters in swing states are already contacted with campaign messages again and again, reducing the impact of any further prompts.

For instance, a 2020 paper looking at TV ads in recent US presidential elections suggested a cost per vote of $100-1,000, which is probably now more typical.

However, not all campaigns are as well resourced, and the less funding they have the cheaper it’s likely to be for them to find additional supporters.

The campaigns for Joe Biden and Donald Trump, along with allied groups, are likely to have about $30 per voter in potential tipping point states. Both have set new fundraising records for presidential campaigns. 10

But the Biden campaign had just a tenth as much — $3 per voter — in the 2020 Democratic primaries through Super Tuesday (after which the primaries began to wind down).

That difference is even starker when you consider that a much larger fraction of voters are open to switching their support in primary elections than in general elections (though keep in mind the differences between candidates within a party are less than the differences between parties).

This level of funding in general elections is somewhat unique to the US. Different campaign finance arrangements mean that parties in the UK and Australia both have closer to $10 per voter in a marginal seat. 11 12

In these circumstances the experiments suggesting a cost of $40-100 per vote could even be overestimates, but I haven’t yet investigated the research on the impact of campaign spending outside the US.

The question of when political campaigns are the best use of someone’s charitable giving is also beyond the scope of this article, and seems likely to hinge on how well funded the campaigns are and how large the difference is between candidates.

But if you can encourage someone to vote for <$100, while you think the social value of an extra vote is >$10,000, then it should be possible to make a case that it’s competitive with other options. That is something I hope to investigate in more detail in future.

And if voting yourself is worthwhile, contacting friends and family to encourage them to do the same will also usually be above the bar.

Overall, is it altruistic to vote?

The answer is clearly yes, under the following conditions:

The election concerns important issues, such as the allocation of large amounts of money, or the foreign policy of a country with a large military
One candidate is substantially better than the other, and you’re in a position to know which one that is
The election is somewhat competitive, and you’re able to vote in a competitive seat, or district, or state

In a situation like that, the hour you spend voting is likely to be the most impactful one in your entire year, and could on average get you some influence over how hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars are spent. For this reason I vote whenever I get the chance.

When they vote, some of my friends feel very nervous about whether they’re voting for the right person. While there’s a lot they don’t know, surveys how much the public knows about policy issues suggest that they’re a lot more informed than the average voter, and so their input should increase the odds of the better candidate winning. We shouldn’t make the perfect the enemy of the good.

All of that said, I respect people who consciously opt out of following politics, in order to preserve their focus on other important work that improves the world. Following politics and developing informed views can absorb a great deal of time. While spending one hour voting is highly impactful, spending hundreds of hours tracking politics in between elections isn’t — at least if you aren’t regularly taking action based on what you’re learning.

Finally, while persuading other people to vote takes more time or money than simply voting yourself, in elections where you’re confident one candidate is much better for the world than another, joining or donating to a political campaign may also represent a high-impact way of improving the world.

Has this article helped you better estimate how important it is to vote?

As we noted above, appeals from people they know are much more likely to influence people’s behaviour than TV ads or impersonal mail. Some experiments suggest a personal appeal from a friend could increase someone’s likelihood of voting by as much as 10 percentage points. So consider sharing this article with your friends.

Notes and references

i. Probability of Events that Have Never Occurred: When Is Your Vote Decisive? ii. What is the probability that your vote will make a difference? iii. Empirically investigating the electoral college

In these papers the authors look at various historical presidential elections from the perspective of someone who has access to polling data a few weeks ahead of the vote. With what likelihood should they have expected that one vote would change the outcome?

The first found a probability of 1 in 10 million of a typical single vote being decisive in 1992, with a chance of 1 in 3.5 million for a swing state such as Vermont. The second found a probability of 1 in 60 million for a single vote in a random state, and 1 in 10 million for swing states such as New Mexico or Virginia. That compares to an electorate of around 120 million voters.

As they put it:

‘A probability of 1 in 10 million is tiny but, as discussed by Edlin, Gelman, and Kaplan (2007), can provide a rational reason for voting; in this perspective, a vote is like a lottery ticket with a 1 in 10 million chance of winning, but the payoff is the chance to change national policy and improve (one hopes) the lives of hundreds of millions, compared to the alternative if the other candidate were to win.’

The third paper also looks at the presidential election in 2000, the closest in modern history, and (using a rougher methodology) found that the probability of an average vote changing the outcome was around 1 in 6 million in 2000. If we take the same range from an average to swing state proposed in the second paper, that suggests that voters in the key swing states could have a 1 in 2 million chance of swinging the election.

The reality is that in most states, including California, New York or Texas, an additional vote has no ability to swing the outcome, because these states are not close themselves. Even if they were close, they couldn’t swing the electoral college from one candidate to another, because a close election in California implies an incredibly unbalanced election in the rest of the country. Almost all of their influence instead becomes concentrated on a handful of swing states. ↩

This piece also builds upon previous articles from the rationality community such as Politics as Charity by Carl Shulman and Voting is like donating thousands of dollars to charity . ↩
You can see a current and easy-to-read version of the model here , updated figures here , and the numbers we used from October 14 here . ↩
The chance of a tie in an election with perfectly even polling is proportional to 1 over the square root of the number of voters, and note that sqrt(10) = 3.2 and sqrt(5) = 2.2. ↩

Political parties and candidates know they’re in a competitive and strategic race to get the most votes. If they can’t get elected they can’t achieve anything, so they constantly adapt their positions, and add or remove interest groups from their coalition, to ensure they have a decent chance of winning.

If young voters in the US suddenly started voting at the same rate as seniors — 70% rather than 42% — any political party that didn’t adjust its positions to increase its appeal to those voters would quickly become irrelevant.

So rather than thinking of your vote as having a tiny chance of completely swinging an election outcome, you can instead think of it as having a high chance of nudging every party just a little bit in the direction of the political views held by you and people like you. This is one reason there’s still value in voting, even if this year’s election doesn’t happen to be especially close: by indicating you’ll vote in future years you give politicians much more reason to appeal to you.

I’ll also just add that in multi-party systems, such as those involving proportional representation, rather than completely flip an election result your vote is more likely to change which grouping of parties forms a coalition government, and their relative influence within the coalition.

What both of these alternative analyses have in common is that they replace a very small chance of a hugely valuable outcome, with a higher chance of a somewhat less valuable outcome.

While formalising either of these models is going to be more challenging, I expect that these two changes will usually roughly cancel out, leaving the overall expected value about the same. ↩

As you can vote in all of these elections simultaneously (and often state and local election too!), and on average their terms are four years each, for simplicity I’ll treat them though they were all elected simultaneously each four years.

As you might expect, if you can vote in marginal elections for two of these bodies at once the case for voting will be about twice as strong as if you can only do so for one. ↩

See this book on the likely deaths from a nuclear war. ↩
From Wikipedia : “Body counts counted at least 110,600 violent deaths as of April 2009 (Associated Press). The Iraq Body Count project documents 185,000 – 208,000 violent civilian deaths through Feb 2020 in their table.” ↩
Ipsos: A global view of the 2020 US presidential election
YouGov: Europe wants Joe Biden
Pew Research Center: Merkel and Macron trusted globally
Pew Research Center: Trump’s International Ratings Remain Low, Especially Among Key Allies
YouGov 2016: How other countries would vote in the American election . ↩
The most extreme case I could find was the Senate campaign of Al Gross in Alaska who has raised $57 for each person who voted in Alaska in 2016. ↩
In 2017 the Conservative party spent £18.6m contesting about 10% of the actual seats. Across the whole election 32 million votes were cast. This comes to about $8 USD per voter. ↩

Why voting is important as a student

As election season approaches quickly, it is important for all of us to make our voice heard. As a student who wants change, it is important for other people my age to realize the importance of voting as well. We as young adults account for 50 percent of the voting population, yet only 19 percent of 18-25 year olds voted in the 2016 Presidential elections. We can do better! Every vote counts, whether you think so or not.

Today, we are more diverse than ever as young adults. We have the ability to challenge and question each party on what their agenda is. When it comes down to voting, we want someone who will represent the needs of us in their agenda. We as Millennials and Gen Z are helping shape the social agenda for many of the political candidates and bringing change to their agendas. Since we have such a big voting population pool, we can help sway the election by supporting candidates who see issues the same way we do.

I not only think that voting is a right that we are given, but I also believe it is a responsibility. We are setting the example and vision for the future with the people we are electing. We better shape the future of our democracy for our kids and generations to follow by voting. Many of the initiatives that you are voting on effect not just us, but our environment. One of the key political topics in this generation are environmental issues. From someone who has lived in Utah most of my life, we are directly affected with some of the environmental changes that elected officials oversee.

We’re all in this together, and if only a few of us are voting, nothing will change. Nothing changes if nothing changes. We all have one vote no matter what background, ethnicity or political party you belong to. Make it count.

It’s never been easier to educate yourself as a voter with the power of the news at our fingertips. Learning more is easy, you can click here to learn more about the issues you will be voting on this election.

Make sure to mail in your ballot if you haven’t already sent it. If you don’t have your ballot, then we’ll see you at the polls on Nov. 5 for early voting and Nov. 6 for Election Day!

Looking for something specific?

Academic Advising (4)
Alumni (112)
Articles (1,113)
Business Career Services (97)
Business Student Government (19)
Dean's Office (20)
Department of Entrepreneurship & Strategy (89)
Department of Finance (74)
Department of Management (29)
Department of Marketing (29)
Department of Operations & Information Systems (54)
Executive Education (2)
Research (102)
Featured (1,230)
First Ascent Scholars (34)
In the News (291)
Business Health and Prosperity (1)
Daniels Fund Ethics (17)
Goff Strategic Leadership Center (19)
Ivory-Boyer Real Estate Center (5)
Kem C. Gardner Policy Institute (10)
Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute (13)
Marriner S. Eccles Institute for Economics and Quantitative Analysis (17)
Sorenson Impact Center (19)
Utah Center for Financial Services (1)
Opportunity Scholars (42)
Podcasts (29)
Press Releases (222)
School of Accounting (54)
Student Articles (173)
Student Clubs & Organizations (47)
Thought Leadership (254)
Undergraduate (314)

Spencer Fox Eccles Business Building

1655 East Campus Center Drive

Salt Lake City, Utah 84112-8939

Quick Links

The 2024 presidential election is only a few months away. This contest represents a rematch between President Joe Biden (Democrat) and former President Donald Trump (Republican). In 2020, a record 155 million Americans cast their vote, forever altering the course of our nation.

Four years later, this election has tremendous stakes for Americans of all walks of life. Your vote will help decide the future of health care, immigration reform, economic policy, women’s health, social programs, foreign aid, and so much more .

In California, the primary election was moved from June to March. Governor Jerry Brown signed a bill to move California's primary elections to the beginning of March in 2020, three months ahead of when they were held in 2016. It was a move designed to increase the influence of the country's most populous state in deciding presidential candidates.

It's disappointing to hear about the low voter turnout in the primary election, but it's heartening that there's still a chance for people to participate in the democratic process during the general election. Every vote counts, and it's important for people to exercise their right to vote and have their voices heard on the issues that matter to them.

Californians, in particular, will fill 52 seats in the House of Representatives and elect a new Senator to replace long-serving Democrat Diane Feinstein. There will also be races at the county and city level that will have a major impact on local funding and community development. Beyond politicians, California will vote on 10 ballot measures including an increase in health care funding and access, affordable housing, and marriage equality.

Elections will be held on Tuesday, November 5. Remember, mail-in ballots are available for those who can’t participate in-person. Additionally, Vote Centers will be operational from Saturday, October 26, through Tuesday, November 5. AltaMed is set to once again facilitate multiple vote centers across Los Angeles and Orange counties, providing voters the opportunity to cast their ballots in person or conveniently drop them off. Since 2020, AltaMed has served as the host for 66 vote centers, witnessing a total of 1,741 votes cast and 5,678 ballots deposited in our ballot drop box.

Here are five reasons why you should vote in every election.

1. Elections have consequences. Every vote matters.

You have the power to make key decisions on the quality of life you want for yourself, your family, and your community. Voting is your chance to stand up for the issues you care about like affordable housing , women’s health, economic justice, environmental protection , and quality education. While Presidential or other national elections draw significant attention, midterm and local elections typically see less voter turnout. A Portland State University study found that fewer than 15% of eligible voters were turning out to vote for Mayors, Council Members, and other local offices.

Low turnout means that important local issues are determined by a limited group of voters, making a single vote even more statistically meaningful. While certain propositions may be popular, and therefore seem like a sure thing, they can fail if people stay home.

2. It’s your right. Not voting is giving up your voice.

Today, most American citizens over the age of 18 are entitled to vote in federal and state elections, but voting was not always a right for all Americans. Every vote cast is a testament to the struggles of those who came before us, a tribute to their sacrifices, and a pledge to uphold the principles of democracy.

Because the Constitution did not specifically say who could vote, this question was largely left to the states in the 1800s. While no longer explicitly excluded, voter suppression is a problem in many parts of the country.

It was not until the 15th Amendment was passed in 1869 that black men were allowed to vote. But even so, many would-be voters faced measures meant to discourage them from exercising that right. This would continue until the 24th Amendment in 1964, which eliminated the poll tax, and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which ended Jim Crow laws. Women were denied the right to vote until 1920, when the long efforts of the women’s suffrage movement finally resulted in the 19th Amendment. Later, in 1971, the American voting age was lowered to 18, building on the idea that if a person was old enough to serve their country in the military, they should be allowed to vote.

Even today, the battle for voting rights rages on. Voter suppression tactics, disenfranchisement, and gerrymandering threaten to undermine the very foundation of democracy. From stringent voter ID laws to purges of voter rolls, attempts to restrict access to the ballot persist, disproportionately impacting communities of color, low-income individuals, and marginalized groups.

Voting is the voice of the people, the mechanism through which we express our hopes, dreams, and aspirations for a better future. It is the great equalizer, where every individual, regardless of background or status, possesses the same weight in shaping the course of our country.

Use your right. Exert your power.

3. It's your money.

One way or the other, every person in our community pays taxes – both citizens and non-citizens. And yet, most people don’t know how that money is being used. Voting is your chance to choose how your tax dollars are spent, such as additional funding for health care and social services. This happens both through your vote on specific propositions and ballot measures, as well as those we elect to leadership positions that commit to supporting key social services in our communities.

4. Voting is an opportunity for change.

Do you want to make a positive impact in your community? Voting gives you that chance! There are many social issues affected by elections, including (but not limited to) gay marriage, immigration , reproductive rights , public education, etc. Social issues affect everyone in one way or another. Voting serves as a conduit through which we can advocate for and enact policies that address pressing social issues, championing equality, justice, and opportunity for every individual, regardless of background or circumstance.

To have a say in who gets to determine social agendas, it’s essential to vote.

5. The community depends on you!

Our communities are made up of family, friends, loved ones, neighbors, and children. Some may not know how important voting is, while others cannot vote. Voting isn't just a civic duty; it's a profound responsibility to represent not only yourself but also those who cannot advocate for themselves, including loved ones who depend on your voice.

Make sure your voice is heard – your vote is your health. Vote !

Call to Action: Being the change you want to see.

Help make a difference in your community during this general election and join us in the My Vote. My Health. ™ initiative. By visiting our website, you can check your registration status, voting locations, and download other resources to help get out the vote in your community.

If you do not qualify to vote, you can still get involved by volunteering, speaking out about issues that matter to you, and encouraging others to vote. Everyone's voice counts, and there are plenty of ways to make a difference even if you can't cast a ballot.

If you are not yet 18, or are not a United States citizen, you can still participate in the following ways:

If you are at least 16 years of age you can pre-register to vote in the state of California.
Get informed. Read up on issues (both local and national) and figure out where you stand. Our partners at the League of Women Voters and California Plus Health Advocates both offer helpful information about what to expect on this year’s ballot.
Get out and talk to people. Even if you cannot vote, you can still voice opinions in public forums. When people engage each other about the issues, we stand to become better-informed citizens.
Volunteer. You can work with outreach campaigns by volunteering to get out the vote in your community through phone banks, door-to-door outreach, and texting. To volunteer at AltaMed, click here .
Stay in touch. You can follow our efforts via Facebook and Instagram or text JOIN to 33339 .

In 2024, AltaMed Health Services proudly announces the expansion of its Integrated Civic Engagement Model (ICEM) and the My Vote. My Health. ® (MVMH) Campaign! In partnership with the California Primary Care Association (CPCA) and with generous support from The California Endowment (TCE), we've broadened our impact to 11 community health centers, 9 community-based organizations, and 6 regional consortiums. If you are a Community Health Center or care provider and would like to join, visit MyVoteMyHealth.org for tools you can use to get out the vote amongst your patients and communities.

Get started with AltaMed

See how AltaMed Health Services can help your family grow healthy.

5 Reasons Why You Should Vote!

Newsletters
Best Industries
Business Plans
Home-Based Business
The UPS Store
Customer Service
Black in Business
Your Next Move
Female Founders
Best Workplaces
Company Culture
Public Speaking
HR/Benefits
Productivity
All the Hats
Digital Transformation
Artificial Intelligence
Bringing Innovation to Market
Cloud Computing
Social Media
Data Detectives
Exit Interview
Bootstrapping
Crowdfunding
Venture Capital
Business Models
Personal Finance
Founder-Friendly Investors
Upcoming Events
Inc. 5000 Vision Conference
Become a Sponsor
Cox Business
Verizon Business
Branded Content
Apply Inc. 5000 US

Inc. Premium

These 32 Inspiring Leaders Make Their Arguments for Why Everyone Should Vote

Don't you dare stay home..

Tomorrow is Election Day, a day that should make every American proud. You can make your voice heard and celebrate a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Wherever you fall on the political spectrum, it is a beautiful thing.

Yet for whatever reason, many Americans will choose not to vote. The highest voter turnout in recent memory was 2008, when 58% of eligible people voted. Many were thrilled with that level of civic engagement - even though it meant that 42% of eligible voters did not participate. Democracy needs an active, engaged, educated population. Civic engagement is key. You can vote right, left, or center, just as long as you vote.

So enjoy quote after quote after quote, just promise to vote, vote, vote:

1. “To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.” - Louis L'Amour

2. “To vote is like the payment of a debt, a duty never to be neglected, if its performance is possible.” - Rutherford B. Hayes

3. “The future of this republic is in the hands of the American voter.” - Dwight D. Eisenhower

4. “You've got to vote, vote, vote, vote. That's it; that's the way we move forward. That's how we make progress for ourselves and for our country.” - Michelle Obama

5. “Elections belong to the people. It’s their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.” - Abraham Lincoln

6. “If people don't vote, everything stays the same. You can protest until the sky turns yellow or the moon turns blue, and it's not going to change anything if you don't vote.” - Dolores Huerta

7. “All voting is a sort of gaming, like checkers or backgammon, with a slight moral tinge to it, a playing with right and wrong.” - Henry David Thoreau

8. “It's heartbreaking that so many hundreds of millions of people around the world are desperate for the right to vote, but here in America people stay home on election day.” - Moby

9. “Always vote for principle, though you may vote alone, and you may cherish the sweetest reflection that your vote is never lost.” - John Quincy Adams

10. “The vote is the most powerful instrument ever devised by man for breaking down injustice and destroying the terrible walls which imprison men because they are different from other men.” - Lyndon B. Johnson

11. “We do not have government by the majority. We have government by the majority who participate.” - Thomas Jefferson

12. “Bad officials are elected by good citizens who don’t vote.” - George Jean Nathan

13. “The vote is precious. It's almost sacred, so go out and vote like you never voted before.” - John Lewis

14. “One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors.” - Plato

15. “The fact that a man is to vote forces him to think. You may preach to a congregation by the year and not affect its thought because it is not called upon for definite action. But throw your subject into a campaign and it becomes a challenge.” - John Jay

16. “Voting is how we participate in a civic society - be it for president, be it for a municipal election. It’s the way we teach our children - in school elections - how to be citizens, and the importance of their voice.” - Loretta Lynch

17. “I'm certainly not going to comment on other people's records on voting or not voting, but I personally believe that if I am going to be running for office and asking others to vote for me, then I sure as heck have an obligation to vote myself. Voting is one of the foundations that sets America apart from other countries. It's very important.” - Andrew Warren

18. “We march in the streets, but we will also march to the voting booth in November.” - Eliseo Medina

19. “The beauty of our democracy lies in the American value of equality: if you vote, you have a seat at the table. If you speak, you have a chance to persuade others. A billionaire and a minimum wage earner have the same power at the ballot box.” - Christine Pelosi

20. “Voting is not only our right-;it is our power.” - Loung Ung

21. “If you are bored and disgusted by politics and don't bother to vote, you are in effect voting for the entrenched Establishments of the two major parties, who please rest assured are not dumb, and who are keenly aware that it is in their interests to keep you disgusted and bored and cynical and to give you every possible reason to stay at home doing one-hitters and watching MTV on primary day. By all means stay home if you want, but don't bullshit yourself that you're not voting. In reality, there is no such thing as not voting: you either vote by voting, or you vote by staying home and tacitly doubling the value of some Diehard's vote.” ? David Foster Wallace

22. “Not voting is not a protest. It is a surrender.” - Keith Ellison

23. “Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves and the only way they could do this is by not voting.” - Franklin D. Roosevelt

24. “Here, in this very first paragraph of the Declaration, is the assertion of the natural right of all to the ballot; for how can ‘the consent of the governed’ be given if the right to vote be denied?” - Susan B. Anthony

25. “While universal suffrage remains an ideal yet to be attained, if you're lucky enough to be able to vote, don't let that privilege go to waste.” - Chelsea Manning

26. “If someone says, ‘Democracy is a sham, those people don't speak for me... the system’s rigged,’ you say, ‘Vote.’ Someone says, ‘I was making a statement by not voting,’ and then you say, ‘Well I can't hear it.’” - Jesse Williams

27. “Here is the most important thing for us all to remember, for the sake of our common sanity and safety: In America, the right to vote and democratically elect a president is just as precious and valued as the right to protest and express yourself against that president.” - Ana Navarro

28. “I never miss a vote; I think that's the power of the people. A lot of people fought and died for us to have votes, for women to have votes in particular - your vote is your one weapon.” - Imelda May

29. “No matter what you think about the Iraq war, there is one thing we can all agree on for the next days - we have to salute the courage and bravery of those who are risking their lives to vote and those brave Iraqi and American soldiers fighting to protect their right to vote.” - Hillary Clinton

30. “The first lesson is this: take it from me, every vote counts.” - Al Gore

31. “Our daughters’ daughters will adore us

And they’ll sing in grateful chorus,

‘Well done! Well done! Well done, Sister Suffragette!’” - Winifred Banks, Mary Poppins

32. “Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason.” - Mark Twain

The Daily Digest for Entrepreneurs and Business Leaders

Get expert insights delivered straight to your inbox.

Vote Wisely: Demand Honesty and Integrity

3 Min Read | Sep 23, 2021

Maybe those excuses are starting to sound pretty reasonable to you now. But as best-selling author and speaker Andy Andrews pointed out in an interview with Dave, if we are concerned at all about our country and its future, we must pay attention to the election and use our votes wisely.

We All Agree—Our Leaders Should Be Honest

We’ve all watched America get meaner and meaner. We’ve watched Republicans and Democrats yell at each other, and no one’s changed anyone’s mind. But ask anyone, rich or poor, black or white, old or young, “Do you think it’s okay for politicians to lie, or should they tell the truth?” Every single person you talk to will say our leaders should tell the truth.

“So the question in this election is not who is going to lead us, but what are our standards for being led?” Andrews asked in a recent visit to The Dave Ramsey Show . “Speaking the truth should be the least we require of our elected leaders,” he added. “It won’t solve all our problems, but it is a beginning.”

Demand Integrity With Your Vote

“America is a ship headed for an iceberg,” Andrews warned. “People everywhere, regardless of their political views, can sense it. We may not have candidates in this election who can turn the ship around. But right now, we better vote for somebody who is going to shift our direction and avoid the iceberg.”

This isn’t about Republican versus Democrat. It’s about demanding honesty and integrity from our leadership—and rewarding that integrity with our votes. That’s how we will elect leaders who will have the fortitude to make the hard decisions that must be made to change course.

Your Vote Can Change Our Direction

As our nation celebrated its 100th birthday, President James A. Garfield said, “Now, more than ever before, the people are responsible for the character of their Congress. If that body be ignorant, reckless and corrupt, it is because the people tolerate ignorance, recklessness and corruption. If it be intelligent, brave and pure, it is because the people demand these high qualities to represent them in the national legislature. If [one hundred years from now] our next centennial does not find us a great nation… it will be because those who represent the enterprise, the culture and the morality of the nation do not aid in controlling the political forces.”

In short, if you want leadership with integrity, then stop trusting people who lie “for our own good.” “We can change the direction of our country,” Andrews said. “But only if smart people will get involved in the election process and actually vote.”

Voting is one key way to help turn this country around. Another is for families and individuals to change their personal economies . And there’s no better way to do that than with America’s money class, Financial Peace University . Millions of families have taken control of their money and changed their futures forever. You can too.

Did you find this article helpful? Share it!

About the author

Ramsey Solutions has been committed to helping people regain control of their money, build wealth, grow their leadership skills, and enhance their lives through personal development since 1992. Millions of people have used our financial advice through 22 books (including 12 national bestsellers) published by Ramsey Press, as well as two syndicated radio shows and 10 podcasts, which have over 17 million weekly listeners. Learn More.

How Contentment Can Make You Rich

Have you ever wondered how contentment can affect your finances? The most content people I know are also the wealthiest. Here’s how contentment can make you rich (in more ways than one).

How to Stop Comparing Yourself to Others

Comparisons steal our joy, our paychecks and our sanity. Learn how to stop comparing yourself to others and focus on your own life.

Indivisible Facebook
Indivisible Mastadon
Indivisible Instagram
Group Support Hub
More Ways to Donate

Electoral Politics 101: Why Elections and Voting Matter

Introduction

Introduction: Why should we care about electoral politics?

Lasting change can only be assured through electoral wins. This guide will give you the background on campaigns and elections you need to get involved in electoral politics for the first time.

Ch 1: Why Do We Hold Elections?

Elections let us determine who makes our decisions for us. Different decisions are made at different levels of government, and knowing who the final decisionmaker is on the issues that matter to you, will make you a more effective electoral advocate.

Ch 2: How Do Elections Work?

Understanding campaigns is critical before diving into the electoral process. Campaigns and elections come with a lot of jargon. How do primaries, general elections, and independent expenditures work? Who’s who on a campaign staff, and what’s up with outside campaign consultants? This chapter helps demystify some campaign buzzwords.

Ch 3: How Do Governments Shape Elections?

Governments can have a huge impact on election accessibility. Our country has a long history of intentional voter suppression. State governments typically control elections, and can make it easier or harder for people to cast a ballot.

Ch 4: How Can Your Group Take Action?

Your group can make a real impact on electoral politics. Through volunteering, generating earned media, and endorsing, your group can be a real player in electoral politics.

Conclusion: How Do We Get Started?

Election Day 2018 is a year away, and groups are excited to hit the ground running. Once you’ve finished reading through the guide, here are some immediate steps you can take to put your knowledge to action.

PLEASE NOTE: How you engage in elections depends a lot on your group’s organizational status. This guide is intended for unincorporated local groups and those spending money under 501(c)(4) tax rules--independently, or through fundraising tools we plan to offer as a 501(c)(4) organization ourselves. We do not recommend you incorporate as a 501(c)(3), as these organizations have serious limitations on their ability to participate in elections.

Why should Indivisible groups care about electoral politics?

Over the last year, we’ve demonstrated the power of standing Indivisible. Indivisible groups helped save the Affordable Care Act from repeal. We flocked to airports nationwide after the first Muslim ban was announced. We demonstrated solidarity in the wake of horrific white supremacist attacks in Charlottesville. And we are fighting to defeat the Trump Tax Scam and ensure permanent protections for DACA recipients and their families. We’ve proven that, together, we can resist this authoritarian administration and its agenda to hurt our families and neighbors—so why should we turn our attention to the messy business of electoral politics?

When people talk about hating politics, they often mean that they hate campaigns. Campaigns can be frustrating. It can seem like the industries and candidates with the most money drown out the rest of us in a flood of meaningless or negative campaign ads. Talking heads on cable news treat campaigns like horse races, and trivialize issues that matter to our families.

But elections and campaigns don’t have to be so painful! Once you cut past the jargon and the spin, elections are another way of exerting constituent power. Exercising that power by participating in electoral politics can be thrilling -- not to mention a great way to make lasting friends, and feel stronger in solidarity in the fights to come.

And there are lots of reasons for groups to get involved in electoral politics:

To secure our wins long-term, we need to elect people who see them as wins. The current leadership in Washington continues to push a harmful agenda that hurts our families, weakens our democracy, and endangers our environment. If we want to actually create lasting change on the issues that matter to us, we need to win electoral victories first.

Participating in elections helps highlight progressive values and policies. When we get out in front on important policy issues, and fight for our values through electoral participation, we can win a coveted place at the agenda-setting table. Flexing our movement’s electoral muscle sets the stage for progressive candidates and electeds to serve with political courage.

It’s past time we recognize that progressives exist in every state and district. For too long, the political left has overlooked or taken for granted vast swaths of the American electorate. In many parts of the country, there is no progressive bench -- because progressives haven’t contested key races in generations. You’ve all proven that there are progressives in every Congressional district in the country. Engaging in electoral politics is a way to build local power and grow capacity so that our movement endures beyond this moment of resistance.

Getting involved in elections reminds us that we’re not alone in this fight. The health care fight became a flashpoint: a key political moment that united people across the county, allowing local groups to take meaningful action, recruit new members and grow existing members’ leadership and skills. Electoral campaigns provide the same opportunity. Campaigns can be a great way to meet other local activists and forge new connections for the fight ahead.

What’s this guide for?

Just as you’ve taken back constituent power, you can take back electoral power. This guide is meant as a long-term resource, rather than a quick how-to. We want you to have the background you need to engage effectively in electoral politics. This guide is a 101 on elections in America, from what elections actually determine, to specifics on how campaigns work, to why your vote matters.

Make this guide work for you. You don’t have to read this guide in a single sitting. Feel free to refer back to it over the coming months whenever you have questions on campaign specifics. And always feel free to get in touch with your Indivisible Organizer via their email or via [email protected] if you have any questions that aren’t covered in here.

Chapter 1: Why Do We Hold Elections?

Elections let us determine who makes our decisions for us..

In a democracy like ours, we elect representatives to craft policy for us. Every policy that impacts people -- from federal laws on health care to local legislation on concealed carry of firearms -- is decided by representatives who answer to their constituents.

Policy at every level is about distributing resources and ranking priorities. Does your town government care more about boosting the budget for the parks department or giving teachers a raise? Does your county government consider it worth the money to invest in the security of voting machines? Does your state government invest meaningfully to make college more attainable and affordable? Is a federal tax break for millionaires worth cuts to other programs (the answer is always no)?

Elections are one key way we’ve chosen to make these decisions. They determine who will be in the room when important decisions are made -- and they ensure our representatives know who they’ll have to answer to when they rank priorities and make tough decisions.

Different decisions are made at different levels of government.

Elections matter because they decide who makes the calls on issues we care about. Under the Constitution, some decisions are controlled by the federal government in DC, and some are left to state and local governments. You and your group know what issues matter most to you, and the issues Indivisible groups choose to prioritize will vary from place to place.

Election law and reporting requirements vary significantly from state to state, and between the state and federal level. One thing that’s always okay, however, is to volunteer your time. We encourage groups to use your volunteer time, rather than your money, when getting involved in electoral politics at every level.

Federal Issues -- Decisions made by the federal government -- the Executive branch and the US House & Senate -- tend to be on issues that will impact Americans in every state. These include international issues, like trade agreements, immigration and treaties. Both NAFTA and the Iran deal are federally-negotiated deals, and all decisions about immigration have to stem from the federal government. The federal government is also responsible for managing safety net programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. The federal government can also regulate companies that do business in more than one state. That means they have a lot of power over issues like pharmaceutical drug approval, major banking regulations, and which chemicals are considered toxic. Elections to the federal government happen every two years. Members of Congress serve two-year terms, presidents serve four year terms and US Senators serve six year terms (with one-third of Senators running for reelection every two years).

State Issues -- State governments control issues that only impact people within their borders. This includes most education issues, like what kids learn in school, statewide standardized tests, and the overall school budget. States are also responsible for setting certain tax levels, and determining how revenue will be spread out across the state. They set election policy, including things like voter ID laws, and the procedure for redrawing Congressional districts every 10 years. State governments also have a lot of power to determine what local governments can and can’t do (a power called “preemption”). For example, in some states, cities can pass new, city-level taxes. In others, the state government is the only one allowed to raise or lower taxes. Elections for governor, state attorney general, state supreme court justices and other statewide elected officials typically happen every four years. Elections to the state house and senate usually occur every two years. And some places, like Virginia, time their races so that they have some kind of statewide election every year.

Local Issues -- Local issues are ones that only impact people living in a particular city or county. These types of issues tend to include policing reform, changes to public transit, access to clean water and green spaces, zoning laws that often have a major impact on environmental justice, and city planning. Often these are the issues that impact a constituent’s life most directly on a daily basis. Elections for city or county council, school board or mayor happen at different times in different places -- you’ll want to do some research to figure out when they’re coming up in your area.

Joint Issues -- Many issues are decided across different levels of government. For example, the federal government makes most decisions on Medicaid, but states do have the option of choosing to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act. The federal government needed to take action on that issue first, but states were able to decide whether or not to move forward with expansion. The federal Department of Education is responsible for ensuring states are complying with laws like Title IX, but state governments control what is taught in schools -- from comprehensive sex education, to whether or not to teach evolution.

Knowing who controls these policies makes you a better electoral advocate. If you’re most passionate about protecting access to our national parks and other federally protected public lands, you’ll want to get involved in elections for the US House of Representatives and US Senate. If you care about criminal justice reform, you should focus your attention on elections for district attorney or State Attorney General. If your group is deeply interested in city planning and school zoning, you may want to engage in elections for city council or school board.

Example: North Carolina and HB 2

Politicians at the local level can often be much more progressive than those at the state level, particularly when it comes to blue cities in red states. There has been a concerted effort in red state governments to “preempt” local legislation, passing conservative statewide bills that overturn more liberal citywide laws. In February 2016, the city council in Charlotte, North Carolina, passed a bill allowing residents to use the public bathroom that most closely aligns with their gender identity. In March, the state legislature held a special session to pass statewide legislation nullifying Charlotte’s bill. While the hateful state bill was eventually partially repealed, the fight in North Carolina is a good reminder that living in a blue city isn’t necessarily enough to protect red state residents. Electing progressives statewide is also crucial to protecting your rights.

Chapter 2: How do elections work?

Knowing how elections work inside out will give you confidence in your efforts.

Getting involved in the electoral process for the first time can be intimidating. What’s the difference between open and closed primaries, and why does it matter? What exactly does a campaign manager do? Why does everyone keep talking about “IEs”?

This chapter provides background on the basics of campaigns and elections. The truth is, campaigns will look different from district to district, and vary based on level of the ballot. Our guide is meant to give you some background on the terms that are thrown around in the campaign world, and how they relate to real-life politicking.

Our electoral process functions through a two-party democracy.

The American political system has generally functioned as a two-party system. The names, platforms and make-ups of those parties have changed over the years, but we’ve typically worked as a democracy with two parties. These two parties are responsible for selecting candidates to run for office in all “partisan” elections. In some places, all elections for office are partisan. In others, elections for certain offices (like school board, judgeships, or even city council) are non-partisan, meaning candidates don’t identify publicly with any political party.

Both parties typically elect a single candidate to run for office in every election. Each party determines which candidate they will throw their support behind using a primary process.

Open primaries are open to any registered voter in the state, regardless of partisan affiliation.

Closed primaries require you to register with a party before you can vote.

Caucuses are in-person events where voters publicly express their candidate preference. Caucuses happen most frequently in elections for president.

“Jungle primaries” have every candidate run in a single primary election, regardless of party. Whichever two candidates receive the greatest number of votes in the primary move on to the general, whether or not they’re from different political parties. These primaries are only fully used in three states: California, Louisiana, and Washington state (with a modified jungle primary in use in Alaska). Jungle primaries can create headaches for candidates challenging incumbents. For example, a particularly bad conservative may inspire half a dozen progressive challengers, but only a single challenger from the right. In these cases, progressives can wind up splitting the vote, leading to a general election with only far-right candidates.

General Elections

Major party candidates face each other and any other candidates in the general. Typically, independents and third party candidates struggle in general elections because the two major political parties start with a major advantage in resources, party infrastructure, and voter support.

Ballot Access

One of the ways the two major political parties maintain their power is through limiting third party and independent candidate ballot access.

Ballot access decisions are made at the state level. In many cases, candidates or parties may have to gather a certain number of signatures, or have won a particular percentage in the last election, before they’re allowed to run for office.

Elections look different depending on if an incumbent is running.

As mentioned in the guide to Indivisible Endorsements , the presence of an incumbent impacts elections. Elections for “open seats” will look different from ones with an incumbent. Incumbents change the tenor of a race both in the primary and during the general.

Primary elections with an incumbent are elections in which a new candidate is challenging a member of their own party who currently holds office. Incumbents often build up large campaign bank accounts and endorsements to scare away primary challengers. But they know that turnout in primaries is much lower than in other elections, and so results are more unpredictable than general elections.

Primary elections with an open seat are primary elections without an incumbent. These primaries happen when an incumbent chooses to resign, leaving a seat open, or in cases where one party will be challenging an incumbent of the other party in the general election. While front-runners often emerge, open primaries are often real free-for-alls, attracting multiple candidates. For this reason, and because turnout is usually low, no race is more unpredictable than an open primary.

General elections with an incumbent are elections in which a candidate challenges a current office holder from another political party. Typically, this will involve Democrats challenging Republicans or Republicans challenging Democrats, but general elections can also include Independents, as well as Libertarians and Green Party members. Candidates may move to the center politically in the general, which is why primaries play such an important role in getting candidates on the record on issues you care about.

Open general elections are elections without an incumbent. In these cases, both major parties usually field candidates that they’ve chosen through a primary election. These candidates then face each other, along with any candidates from other parties, in the general election.

Full-time campaign professionals run elections nationwide.

Political campaigns.

While local elections for school board or town council may rely on a core base of dedicated volunteers, most elections -- from state house to governor to US senate -- are run by a staff of full-time campaign professionals. Some of the major roles on a political campaign include:

Campaign managers tend to be the most visible staffer on most political campaigns. Campaigns are complicated, and it’s rare that a single person is responsible for success or failure, but the campaign manager is typically the one to reap the credit or the blame for a campaign’s outcome. They are responsible for making major strategic decisions and managing the campaign staff, including the:

Field Director -- A campaign’s field director is responsible for developing and coordinating the campaign’s organizing strategy (i.e. voter contact and the volunteer program). This can include phone banks, canvassing, and Get Out the Vote (GOTV) activities, as well as making decisions in coordination with the campaign manager about which local events a candidate should attend. The field director may supervise volunteer leaders or paid organizers depending on the size of the campaign.

Communications Director -- Depending on the size of a campaign, a candidate may have a single communications director, or a full communications staff. This person is typically responsible for developing the campaign’s media strategy, responding to questions from the press, working with the field director to generate earned media opportunities, and working with the candidate to refine their messaging.

Finance Director -- Despite our best wishes, all campaigns are run on money. The finance director is responsible for figuring out an overall fundraising strategy, identifying top fundraising targets, and may be responsible for coordinating the campaign’s budget.

Data Director -- Bigger elections, for Congress or statewide office, will often employ a data director. The data team is responsible for figuring out targeting in races -- who the candidate’s base voters are, and which voters to target for persuasion.

In addition to staff, many campaigns also hire outside consultants, such as:

General Consultants are more common in federal or statewide races. They help run the campaign behind-the-scenes: helping develop the campaign’s overall message and strategy, making major hiring decisions, and ensuring that other outside consultants are getting their jobs done. These folks may be based in the district, but are often working remotely from DC.

Pollsters use polling to figure out how their candidate is doing in relation to the opposition. Even more importantly, they’re responsible for determining how the district feels about messaging, issues and specific proposals. In badly-managed campaigns, pollsters can exclusively run the show, creating poll-tested policy rather than policy that reflects a candidate’s values. In well-run campaigns, pollsters work closely with communications staff and media consultants to create values-driven messaging that will resonate with voters.

Media consultants are responsible for creating paid advertising, from TV to print and radio ads. Sometimes a campaign will have a single media consultant responsible for all of the above, and other times they’ll hire specialists depending on the audience and the medium.

Independent Expenditures

Outside forces can influence elections through “Independent Expenditures” (IEs). The amount of money that industries, non-profits, and interest groups can spend when they coordinate directly with a federal political campaign is severely limited by federal campaign finance law. As a result, many of these organizations use IEs to fund large-scale electoral activity, without coordinating (discussing strategy) with the campaign they’re supporting.

IEs can engage in a lot of the same behavior campaigns can. They can hire staff or pay outside consultants. They can take out advertisements in support of or in opposition to a candidate. They can run canvassing, phone-banking and GOTV programs. They can conduct polls, and talk to reporters about why they support one candidate over another. The biggest constraints IEs face are:

Strict reporting requirements -- IE campaigns are required to report all activities they spend money on. If they take out ads, all ad costs must be reported. If they run a paid canvass, all canvassing hours must be reported.

Prohibitions on candidate contact -- IEs are absolutely forbidden from coordinating with political candidates. They cannot discuss strategy with campaigns or receive any information from a candidate or candidate surrogate that is not publicly available.

Federal IEs let outside groups spend virtually unlimited amounts of money. IEs aren’t necessarily a good or a bad thing -- both progressive and conservative organizations run IEs during campaign season. These groups can be as varied as the Democratic and Republican congressional campaign committees (DCCC and NRCC), the Koch brothers-funded Americans for Prosperity, and PACs run by groups like Planned Parenthood, environmental groups, and labor unions. We’ll have future guides that get into more detail on the impact of money in politics, and the laws and policies we can support to decrease the impact of a few major donors on our political system. In the meantime, IEs with virtually unlimited federal spending restrictions are a fact of the American political system.

Is My Indivisible Group an IE?

Some groups will choose to run IEs in 2018, and others will coordinate with candidates. There’s no right or wrong answer here, but it does have to be a deliberate decision.

The good news is that volunteer activities don’t trigger IE reporting requirements. Groups should feel free to do free volunteer activities on their own from phone-banking to canvassing, as long as you don’t spend large amounts of your personal money on those volunteer activities. We’ll be providing more tools and guidance on how to volunteer in the coming weeks.

Consensus on what makes for a good campaign or IE is in flux.

2016 threw a wrench into a lot of what we thought we knew about campaigns. There’s a lot of campaign “best practices” and conventional wisdom that candidates on both sides of the aisle tend to stick to when running for office. But as we saw in 2016, it’s entirely possible for a bad candidate with a terrible message, no field strategy, and limited paid media to win.

At the end of the day, all campaigns require voter contact. In 2016, the Trump campaign was given virtually unlimited “earned media” (free press coverage), allowing them to speak to voters while investing very little in paid media or field. Both traditional campaigns and IEs will be considering if there are better methods of contacting voters in 2018 and beyond.

2018 may change how we think about elections yet again. While most campaigns will stick to traditional strategies and tactics, others will be looking to create new methods of voter outreach. Face to face contact will always be the most impactful way to have conversations with voters, but we’re excited to see what creative ways progressive campaigns come up with to bring in new voters in the coming months.

Chapter 3: How do governments shape elections?

State governments enjoy a huge amount of power in deciding how to run elections. These governments can wield their power to expand the electorate, helping ensure governments at every level are representative of the communities they are elected to serve. Yet all too often, state governments choose to use their power to limit the vote.

Voter suppression dates back to the earliest days of our country.

From our country’s founding, anti-democratic forces have worked to limit the vote. For our country’s first one-hundred years, only white men were permitted to vote. White women, all black men and women and Native Americans, were denied the vote under the first US constitution. Even after universal male suffrage was guaranteed in 1870 under the 15th Amendment, women of all races were prevented from voting until the 19th Amendment was ratified in 1920.

Voter suppression in this country has historically targeted black voters. Black men secured the vote in the aftermath of the civil war, radically altering the political makeup of the south. From 1870 to 1877, black men served as US Senators, Representatives and state and local elected officials in former Confederate states. These men were elected primarily by newly-enfranchised former slaves throughout the American south.

White fear of black political power led to new voter suppression laws. Starting in 1877, the federal government withdrew troops from former Confederate states and effectively stepped back from any effort to protect black men’s right to vote in southern states. Southern legislatures quickly passed legislation to suppress the black vote, including “poll taxes,” which kept poor Americans from voting, and “grandfather clauses,” which disenfranchised the descendants of former slaves. While most explicit voter suppression laws during this period were passed in the American south, they were passed with the complicity of northern states, who made little to no effort to protect black male suffrage.

Terrorist groups like the Ku Klux Klan targeted black voters to suppress the vote. KKK members staked out polling places, lynched black voters, and engaged in a campaign of terror to suppress the vote. By 1940, only 3 percent of eligible black voters in the south were registered to vote.

Our country’s racist history of voter suppression began with targeted efforts to prevent black Americans from voting, but today, Latinx voters also face concerted efforts to limit their access to the ballot.

The National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials (NALEAO) estimated that laws passed since 2012 would make voting more difficult in 2016 for 875,000 eligible Latino voters. Five of the states that passed more restrictive voting laws since 2012 are in the top-ten in terms of Latino population nationwide -- and Texas (which is home to 9.8 million Latinx residents) had a law on the books in 2016 that was thrown out in 2017 for having been enacted with clear “discriminatory intent.” Voter suppression in the 21st century looks different than it did decades ago, but it shares an end goal of preventing brown and black Americans from exercising their constitutional right to vote.

Black activists led the fight for voting rights, often without white progressives. From Sojourner Truth’s 1851 speech at the Women’s Rights Convention, to Ida B Wells-Barnett’s campaign against lynching, to Dr. King’s tireless advocacy to pass a voting rights bill, black Americans fought for the right to vote against terrifying opposition. As a result of this sustained activism, Congress passed the Voting Rights Act in 1965. The legislation represented the federal government’s decision to re-engage to protect black voters for the first time in nearly one hundred years. It was a major step forward, requiring jurisdictions with a history of discrimination to receive federal government approval before changing election laws, and forbidding any election policies that limit the vote based on race.

The election of the first black president coincided with a surge in new voter suppression laws. These new laws are disguised to appear less explicitly racist than those of the past. Rather than talking about suppressing the vote, new racist laws talk about “stopping voter fraud.” But, as studies show , there’s zero evidence that “voter fraud” is a real problem -- and a lot of evidence that these laws are really intended to stop black and brown Americans from voting.

Some examples of anti-democratic voter suppression laws, rulings, and policies include:

Voter ID laws -- At present, ten states have strict voter ID laws in place. These laws are a solution in search of a problem. Voter fraud is an imagined crisis, but getting an approved ID can be a challenge for many voters.

Rollback of VRA -- In June 2013, the Supreme Court invalidated key portions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act. The 5-4 decision freed nine states -- primarily in the south -- to change election laws without approval from the federal government. In the four years since the court’s decision, legal battles have raged across the American south, as states from Texas to North Carolina moved to implement new strict voter ID laws.

Reduction of early vote -- Early vote periods allow voters who might be busy on election day to vote on their own time in the lead-up to the election. In 2016, a number of states, including Florida, Georgia, Nebraska, Ohio, Tennessee, West Virginia and Wisconsin all cut early voting days or hours.

Reduction of same-day registration - Same-day voter registration works to expand the electorate, allowing voters who may have been unaware of voter registration deadlines to register to vote at the polling location. North Carolina eliminated election day same-day registration in 2013, and the law was allowed to go into effect without federal government review following that year’s Supreme Court decision.

Cuts to polling places and hours -- Legislators have strategically closed polling places or limited hours in key locations in order to limit voting access for people of color. In 2016, The New York Times rolled out the “ Voter Suppression Trail ,” an interactive “game” that demonstrates the impact of cuts to polling places and hours on citizens’ ability to cast a ballot.

Returning citizens -- Nine states disenfranchise all voters convicted of a felony. In these states, citizens returning from serving a sentence must apply to the Governor of their state to have their voting rights restored. Because our country’s criminal justice system disproportionately targets black and brown Americans -- one in three black men and one in six Latino men can expect to be incarcerated in their lifetime, compared to one in seventeen white men -- laws that disenfranchise returning citizens target voters of color.

Disabled Americans -- While the passage of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) in 1990 explicitly prohibited states from “categorically disqualifying” all people with intellectual or mental health disabilities from voting, thirty-nine states do have some laws that can deny those with “mental incapacities” the right to vote. In all but eleven states, some disabled Americans are barred from voting.

DC & US Territories -- Today, 4.5 million Americans (including 3.4 million in Puerto Rico and 0.6 million in DC) live in US districts and territories that have no voting Congressional representation. Most of the residents of these territories are non-white. Together, residents of these non-voting territories comprise a bigger percentage of the US population than voters in half of US states, including New Mexico, Iowa and Connecticut.

The “Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity” -- In May 2017, Trump announced the creation of the “Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity” and put notorious voter suppression expert Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach in charge, with the mission of uncovering evidence of the non-existent voter fraud Trump claims plagues our elections. The architect of the Commission, Hans von Spakovsky, has argued that Democrats and “mainstream Republican officials and/or academics” should be excluded from participating because they are insufficiently zealous about pursuing evidence of voter fraud. Since its formation, the commission has not uncovered any of this evidence—but it has managed to come under investigation for its funding, operations, and protection of citizens’ voting information.

States can fight voter suppression and expand the electorate.

Efforts to protect the vote have also been gaining traction around the country. Some tactics for voter expansion include:

Automatic voter registration -- In the last two years, six states have created “opt-out” voter registration. In these states , voters who interact with certain state agencies (for example, the Department of Motor Vehicles) are automatically registered unless they specifically opt-out of registration.

Same-day voter registration -- At present, fifteen states allow same-day voter registration. These states tend to be clustered in the northeast and northwest of the country, although Maryland and North Carolina have allowed same-day registration during early vote periods.

Online voter registration -- Online voter registration increases voter participation, particularly among young first-time registrants. These “digital natives” are more comfortable registering online. Online registration also removes the possibility of lost paperwork. 35 states allow electronic registration.

Long early vote periods and no-excuse absentee ballots -- Thirty-seven states allow some form of early voting, whether that be in-person early voting or no-excuse absentee voting. Increasing the time period allowed for voting boosts turnout.

Pre-registration for high school students -- Fourteen states allow high school students as young as 16 years old to “pre-register” to vote. Once pre-registered students turn 18, they are automatically added to the voter rolls.

All mail voting -- Three states -- Colorado, Oregon and Washington -- have an all vote-by-mail system. Ballots are mailed to all registered voters ahead of election day. Voters don’t have to worry about being delayed at work or getting stuck in traffic. On the other hand, mail voting does require voters to take the initiative to mail the ballot back in in time to be counted.

Both voter suppression and expansion impact election results.

State election policies have a real impact on election results. No one is trying to keep rich, straight, white guys from voting. Efforts to restrict the vote disproportionately impact voters of color, and can swing elections away from more progressive candidates.

The number of votes separating a winning and losing campaign can be really small. In 2016, progressive candidates in Nevada and New Hampshire ran closely contested elections for Senate. In Nevada, the difference between the two candidates was about 25,000 votes, or 0.6 percent of the vote. In New Hampshire, the margin was even smaller: just 1,017 votes, or 0.1 percent of the vote.

The laws our governments pass can make it easier or harder to turn out to vote. At the end of the day, voting is the strongest tool we have to take back control of our government. Stay tuned: Indivisible, along with partner organizations, will be releasing guides on voter protection efforts in the coming months.

In 2016, Donald Trump won Wisconsin by about 23,000 votes, out of nearly three million ballots cast.

The state saw its lowest turnout since the year 2000, and most of that drop occurred in Milwaukee, a city in which more than half of residents identify as black or Latinx. Milwaukee’s election director, Neil Albrecht, estimates that “between 10,000 and 15,000 voters” in Milwaukee didn’t vote because of a new photo ID law passed by the Wisconsin state legislature. Mother Jones has a great article on the impact of voter suppression in Wisconsin, which shows the impact a single bad law can have on politics across the country.

Chapter 4: How can your group take action?

Participating in electoral politics can create lasting policy change. No matter what your party affiliation is, voting and participating in elections are critical ways to stop the harm that the Trump Administration seeks to do. We will be rolling out new guides and toolkits over the next four months, providing you with the resources and know-how you need to hit the ground running on electoral politics.

In the meantime, here are a few ways you can take action on electoral politics:

Figure out which campaigns to get involved with -- The first choice any group looking to get involved in electoral politics will have to make is which races to engage with. Many states and districts will be holding statewide and local races in 2018, meaning your group may have the option of engaging in up to a dozen different races. Figure out what policies and values matter most to your group, and consider volunteering in support of races that have an impact on those issues.

Consider making endorsements -- Your demonstrated political power means many candidates will be looking for your endorsement in 2018 and beyond. Check out our guide on the endorsement process, and remember that an endorsement is a real commitment of tangible support -- don’t endorse until you’re ready to hit the ground running.

Volunteer -- The most important way you can support candidates in your area is to spend your time, not your money. Volunteer time—knocking on doors, making phone calls, or holding candidate forums—is a huge factor in who gets elected.

Participate in voter registration efforts -- Across the country, 70.3 percent of eligible citizens are registered to vote. That number drops dramatically to 55.4 percent for voters under the age of 25, 56.3 percent for Asian Americans, and 57.3 percent for Latinx citizens. Broadening the electorate is crucial to ensuring a truly representative democracy. Check out our guide on voter registration.

Generate earned media -- Indivisible groups are experts at using earned media to exert pressure on elected officials. We’ll be rolling out an earned media toolkit for elections in the coming weeks, so watch this space for more information.

Run for something -- Our elected officials are overwhelmingly white and overwhelmingly male. Studies show that women and people of color have to be invited to run repeatedly before they consider jumping into a race. Consider this your first invitation, and check out our Run for something guide once it’s available.

Open Search Search
Information for Information For

To Increase the Youth Vote, Address the Why and the How

By Bita Mosallai

Young people don’t turn out for elections. Young people don’t care about their government. Our government doesn’t need young people’s voices. These are some statements that have been continuously pushed down our throats since our first government class in high school, before we could even understand what it meant to vote. Some young people have come to believe our voices do not matter because older politicians do not pay attention to the issues we are concerned about.

As a first-time voter who was heavily involved in a youth voter registration drive last year, I believe two approaches must be taken to strengthen the youth vote. First, we need to address the larger systematic issue of why young people don’t think voting is important and, second, we must provide guidance to young voters through peer-to peer-contact about how to vote.

This new generation—Generation Z—is more outspoken and politically conscious than ever. Yet as I continually speak with people my age, there is still frustration with our government. Young people argue their voice is not actually heard in the political process or that they feel powerless with how our government is set up. I tell them: Why can’t the answer be to change our government? If you don't like a politician, vote them out. If you wish to see a bill on the policy agenda, vote for the politician who you know will support that bill. One of the most important ways we can create change and a better future for ourselves is by voting, because that's how our government has been set up. We need to provide appropriate support to young voters through civic education and in-person guidance, so they can get to a place where that frustration turns into productive action.

I’ve met young people that have devoted their entire life to civic engagement and activism, but I’ve also met people who didn’t care enough to vote in a general election. But if you’ve spoken to any young person, you know that every single one of us has a belief we are passionate about. Now, not every single person is using their vote to act on their beliefs, which is problematic because voting is ultimately how our representatives are elected. We need to make youth see why voting matters to them; they need to see they are not just voting for the President, they are voting for Congress, governors, important ballot measures, state judicial candidates, etc. They need to see that protesting and pressuring politicians through other methods is effective, but ultimately, they need someone in office that aligns with their views because other methods beyond voting can only do so much.

While guiding youth on why voting is important, the how also matters. Working on a youth voter registration drive last year with the Student PIRGs helped me realize that the best way to support youth voters was by validating the inevitable challenges they will face. Voting is complicated, even though older and more experienced people, as well as elected officials, make it out to be something as easy as filling out a form. For young people voting can be new and intimidating, with rules, deadlines, and many guidelines in place for specific states. Last year, I recognized that along with many young people being newly eligible to vote, voting by mail was a new concept for even experienced voters, so people needed assistance more than ever. Supporting young people through the process, rather than leaving them to figure it out for themselves, also motivates young people to continue voting in the future.

Support becomes even more important when youth encounter all the information out there about politics and elections. I don’t believe that there is not enough accessible information; I believe there is too much information and resources, so voting becomes overwhelming. Simply googling how to sign up for a vote by mail ballot in Arizona took me through five different voter registration sites. All these different resources can be incredibly helpful if curated well, but they may intimidate voters further, and having one single voter registration tool and sticking with it could be one key to not confusing first-time voters.

While we work to streamline resources, first-time voters can benefit from in-person guidance. One of the best ways to make the process easier is by enlisting the help of knowledgeable people who can answer questions. In particular, having other young people who are willing to answer questions can be even more effective—peer-to-peer contact is powerful. I have heard stories from friends and acquaintances who recalled how they got far through the process of registering to vote or requesting a ballot, but didn’t complete an easy step or missed a deadline. But the biggest problem is that they never reached out for help. We need to support our peers if we want them to contribute their much-needed voices.

Voting is not this easy process where you just check the box for President. There are complex voting laws, research you have to do to become an informed citizen, and then you have to do the work to keep elected officials accountable. The process can be overwhelming, but if we wish to construct our ideal government, we need to contribute our voice. If we wish to see a future where the youth vote is robust, we need to provide additional support to young voters and convince them voting is the most effective way of creating change. Young people won’t vote unless they believe their voices are valuable, and they may give in to defeat unless we are out there to help them and remind them there are people watching and waiting for us to give up.

Bita Mosallai is a junior at the University of Arizona. She works with the Student PIRG on civic engagement, food insecurity, and environmental efforts. She aims to combine her passions of education and government in her future career.

Recommended for you

Voting wisely: the best thing we can do for our country, the importance of making a well-informed choice this election cycle..

As the fight for the nomination is nearing its end (or, in the case of the Republicans, maybe it's just beginning), it becomes even more imperative to choose which candidate you support wisely. Yes, the Republicans lost a lot of candidates in the process who could have been a successful nominee in a different election year, but this year does not seem to be about the best candidates.

In fact, this year seems less about issues than ever before. Donald Trump and other “anti-establishment” candidates on the Republican side have been so successful because people are angry and disappointed in their government and in the people they have elected to serve the country. However, is it wise to vote this way? There are other threats to voting wisely; emotional voting, single-issue voting, and uninformed voting are all threats to an important process in American democracy. It is imperative to all citizens to make sure we do not fall into one of these voting traps.

Emotional Voting

I believe that it is far more important to vote on issues than emotions. Yes, we're all angry about the direction the country is going in, or the terrorism that keeps destroying families, or the deadlock in Washington, and many other polarizing political issues. However, voting emotionally may be just as damaging as voting for a superficial reason, like race or gender. If we vote using only our emotions to choose the next president, we are not considering where the candidates stand on various issues. Maybe we are angry at the government, but if you do not agree with any of Trump or Hillary Clinton’s policies, is he or she really the right choice for you?

Emotional voting comes in more than one form. For the Republicans, the last few elections have been more based on emotions such as anger and disappointment with the way the country is being run. However, another form of emotional voting is voting for a superficial reason. Choosing a candidate because you want to be proud to vote for the first African-American president, or the first woman president, can be dangerous since you could face the same ramifications that the other form of emotional voting faces.

Voting in such a way cheapens the voting process. Yes, making history and breaking through the glass ceiling is incredibly important, but wouldn’t you want to be happy that the candidate you chose is more than just a historical choice? If I am going to vote for the potential first female president, I want my choice to match my political views, or at least be close.

Single-Issue Voting

However, this issue is not just involving the Republican party or its candidates. One issue voting has been a problem both sides of the political aisle have been experiencing for decades. Voting wisely is the only way to make sure that the candidate we choose aligns with our beliefs-- all of them (or at least most of them). When we choose a candidate, why would we choose someone that we only side with on one issue? What if we hate everything else about that candidate? What if you don’t know anything else about that candidate except the one issue you are choosing to vote on? We go through our daily lives dealing with more than one political issue. Our paychecks deal with a variety of economic issues alone. If we are religious, issues of religious freedom and issues like abortion face us regularly.

However, we may have to decide which issues matter to us more when it comes to choosing a candidate. If someone is fiscally conservative but socially liberal, how do you choose a candidate if no candidate can reconcile both sets of issues? The choice becomes ours to make. We must decide what issues matter most to us, but also know where candidates stand on every issue. That way, if we like most of what a candidate supports, but one issue they support is something we are resolutely against, then we know not to vote for said candidate.

Uninformed Voting

This leads to another important part of voting wisely: knowledge of our options. Hopefully, this doesn’t come as a shock to anyone, but the media isn’t unbiased. No matter who you watch, NBC or Fox News, they all have an angle. Conservatives like myself think that “liberal media” like CNN or MSNBC are difficult or even impossible to watch, but Liberals feel the same way about Fox News.

However, as intolerable as opposing media stations may be, it is important to see each candidate from all sides before we make a choice. Trump has dominated the media coverage for quite some time, and both sides of the aisle have had their fair share of complaints. However, there has been coverage on other candidates. It is important for voters, especially undecided voters, to understand that the media does not always tell the whole story, on either side. Media outlets favoring one side or the other will find ways to praise those they support and demean those they are opposed to.

Have you ever heard the saying “don’t believe everything you hear?” Well, the same goes for the media. However, the candidates’ websites may not be so clear-cut, either. It is up to us to properly research each candidate on a variety of sources from opposing sides. This gives us a complete picture of every candidate so we can make the best decision possible.

Going to the ballot box is an incredible honor that we get to perform every election cycle. It is important to ensure that the choice we make when we go to cast our ballots is right for us. Websites like isidewith.com have a quiz that can point undecided voters in the right direction. (Yes, I know it is a quiz, but this is one quiz that goes into a lot of detail and is very well done.) Let’s all keep the importance of voting wisely in mind as we get ready either for our primaries or for the presidential election in November.

Subscribe to our Newsletter

25 beatles lyrics: your go-to guide for every situation, the best lines from the fab four.

For as long as I can remember, I have been listening to The Beatles. Every year, my mom would appropriately blast “Birthday” on anyone’s birthday. I knew all of the words to “Back In The U.S.S.R” by the time I was 5 (Even though I had no idea what or where the U.S.S.R was). I grew up with John, Paul, George, and Ringo instead Justin, JC, Joey, Chris and Lance (I had to google N*SYNC to remember their names). The highlight of my short life was Paul McCartney in concert twice. I’m not someone to “fangirl” but those days I fangirled hard. The music of The Beatles has gotten me through everything. Their songs have brought me more joy, peace, and comfort. I can listen to them in any situation and find what I need. Here are the best lyrics from The Beatles for every and any occasion.

And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make

The End- Abbey Road, 1969

The sun is up, the sky is blue, it's beautiful and so are you

Dear Prudence- The White Album, 1968

Love is old, love is new, love is all, love is you

Because- Abbey Road, 1969

There's nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be

All You Need Is Love, 1967

Life is very short, and there's no time for fussing and fighting, my friend

We Can Work It Out- Rubber Soul, 1965

He say, "I know you, you know me", One thing I can tell you is you got to be free

Come Together- Abbey Road, 1969

Oh please, say to me, You'll let me be your man. And please say to me, You'll let me hold your hand

I Wanna Hold Your Hand- Meet The Beatles!, 1964

It was twenty years ago today, Sgt. Pepper taught the band to play. They've been going in and out of style, but they're guaranteed to raise a smile

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band-1967

Living is easy with eyes closed, misunderstanding all you see

Strawberry Fields Forever- Magical Mystery Tour, 1967

Can you hear me? When it rains and shine, it's just a state of mind

Rain- Paperback Writer "B" side, 1966

Little darling, it's been long cold lonely winter. Little darling, it feels like years since it' s been here. Here comes the sun, Here comes the sun, and I say it's alright

Here Comes The Sun- Abbey Road, 1969

We danced through the night and we held each other tight, and before too long I fell in love with her. Now, I'll never dance with another when I saw her standing there

Saw Her Standing There- Please Please Me, 1963

I love you, I love you, I love you, that's all I want to say

Michelle- Rubber Soul, 1965

You say you want a revolution. Well you know, we all want to change the world

Revolution- The Beatles, 1968

All the lonely people, where do they all come from. All the lonely people, where do they all belong

Eleanor Rigby- Revolver, 1966

Oh, I get by with a little help from my friends

With A Little Help From My Friends- Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, 1967

Hey Jude, don't make it bad. Take a sad song and make it better

Hey Jude, 1968

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away. Now it looks as though they're here to stay. Oh, I believe in yesterday

Yesterday- Help!, 1965

And when the brokenhearted people, living in the world agree, there will be an answer, let it be.

Let It Be- Let It Be, 1970

And anytime you feel the pain, Hey Jude, refrain. Don't carry the world upon your shoulders

I'll give you all i got to give if you say you'll love me too. i may not have a lot to give but what i got i'll give to you. i don't care too much for money. money can't buy me love.

Can't Buy Me Love- A Hard Day's Night, 1964

All you need is love, love is all you need

All You Need Is Love- Magical Mystery Tour, 1967

Whisper words of wisdom, let it be

Blackbird singing in the dead of night, take these broken wings and learn to fly. all your life, you were only waiting for this moment to arise.

Blackbird- The White Album, 1968

Though I know I'll never lose affection, for people and things that went before. I know I'll often stop and think about them. In my life, I love you more

In My Life- Rubber Soul, 1965

While these are my 25 favorites, there are quite literally 1000s that could have been included. The Beatles' body of work is massive and there is something for everyone. If you have been living under a rock and haven't discovered the Fab Four, you have to get musically educated. Stream them on Spotify, find them on iTunes or even buy a CD or record (Yes, those still exist!). I would suggest starting with 1, which is a collection of most of their #1 songs, or the 1968 White Album. Give them chance and you'll never look back.

14 Invisible Activities: Unleash Your Inner Ghost!

Obviously the best superpower..

The best superpower ever? Being invisible of course. Imagine just being able to go from seen to unseen on a dime. Who wouldn't want to have the opportunity to be invisible? Superman and Batman have nothing on being invisible with their superhero abilities. Here are some things that you could do while being invisible, because being invisible can benefit your social life too.

1. "Haunt" your friends.

Follow them into their house and cause a ruckus.

2. Sneak into movie theaters.

Going to the cinema alone is good for your mental health , says science

Considering that the monthly cost of subscribing to a media-streaming service like Netflix is oft...

Free movies...what else to I have to say?

3. Sneak into the pantry and grab a snack without judgment.

Late night snacks all you want? Duh.

4. Reenact "Hollow Man" and play Kevin Bacon.

America's favorite son? And feel what it's like to be in a MTV Movie Award nominated film? Sign me up.

5. Wear a mask and pretend to be a floating head.

Just another way to spook your friends in case you wanted to.

6. Hold objects so they'll "float."

"Oh no! A floating jar of peanut butter."

7. Win every game of hide-and-seek.

Just stand out in the open and you'll win.

8. Eat some food as people will watch it disappear.

Even everyday activities can be funny.

9. Go around pantsing your friends.

Even pranks can be done; not everything can be good.

10. Not have perfect attendance.

You'll say here, but they won't see you...

11. Avoid anyone you don't want to see.

Whether it's an ex or someone you hate, just use your invisibility to slip out of the situation.

12. Avoid responsibilities.

Chores? Invisible. People asking about social life? Invisible. Family being rude? Boom, invisible.

13. Be an expert on ding-dong-ditch.

Never get caught and have the adrenaline rush? I'm down.

14. Brag about being invisible.

Be the envy of the town.

But don't, I repeat, don't go in a locker room. Don't be a pervert with your power. No one likes a Peeping Tom.

Good luck, folks.

19 Lessons I'll Never Forget from Growing Up In a Small Town

There have been many lessons learned..

Small towns certainly have their pros and cons. Many people who grow up in small towns find themselves counting the days until they get to escape their roots and plant new ones in bigger, "better" places. And that's fine. I'd be lying if I said I hadn't thought those same thoughts before too. We all have, but they say it's important to remember where you came from. When I think about where I come from, I can't help having an overwhelming feeling of gratitude for my roots. Being from a small town has taught me so many important lessons that I will carry with me for the rest of my life.

1. The importance of traditions.

Sometimes traditions seem like a silly thing, but the fact of it is that it's part of who you are. You grew up this way and, more than likely, so did your parents. It is something that is part of your family history and that is more important than anything.

2. How to be thankful for family and friends.

No matter how many times they get on your nerves or make you mad, they are the ones who will always be there and you should never take that for granted.

3. How to give back.

When tragedy strikes in a small town, everyone feels obligated to help out because, whether directly or indirectly, it affects you too. It is easy in a bigger city to be able to disconnect from certain problems. But in a small town those problems affect everyone.

4. What the word "community" really means.

Along the same lines as #3, everyone is always ready and willing to lend a helping hand when you need one in a small town and to me that is the true meaning of community. It's working together to build a better atmosphere, being there to raise each other up, build each other up, and pick each other up when someone is in need. A small town community is full of endless support whether it be after a tragedy or at a hometown sports game. Everyone shows up to show their support.

5. That it isn't about the destination, but the journey.

People say this to others all the time, but it takes on a whole new meaning in a small town. It is true that life is about the journey, but when you're from a small town, you know it's about the journey because the journey probably takes longer than you spend at the destination. Everything is so far away that it is totally normal to spend a couple hours in the car on your way to some form of entertainment. And most of the time, you're gonna have as many, if not more, memories and laughs on the journey than at the destination.

6. The consequences of making bad choices.

Word travels fast in a small town, so don't think you're gonna get away with anything. In fact, your parents probably know what you did before you even have a chance to get home and tell them. And forget about being scared of what your teacher, principle, or other authority figure is going to do, you're more afraid of what your parents are gonna do when you get home.

7. To trust people, until you have a reason not to.

Everyone deserves a chance. Most people don't have ill-intentions and you can't live your life guarding against every one else just because a few people in your life have betrayed your trust.

8. To be welcoming and accepting of everyone.

While small towns are not always extremely diverse, they do contain people with a lot of different stories, struggle, and backgrounds. In a small town, it is pretty hard to exclude anyone because of who they are or what they come from because there aren't many people to choose from. A small town teaches you that just because someone isn't the same as you, doesn't mean you can't be great friends.

9. How to be my own, individual person.

In a small town, you learn that it's okay to be who you are and do your own thing. You learn that confidence isn't how beautiful you are or how much money you have, it's who you are on the inside.

10. How to work for what I want.

Nothing comes easy in life. They always say "gardens don't grow overnight" and if you're from a small town you know this both figuratively and literally. You certainly know gardens don't grow overnight because you've worked in a garden or two. But you also know that to get to the place you want to be in life it takes work and effort. It doesn't just happen because you want it to.

11. How to be great at giving directions.

If you're from a small town, you know that you will probably only meet a handful of people in your life who ACTUALLY know where your town is. And forget about the people who accidentally enter into your town because of google maps. You've gotten really good at giving them directions right back to the interstate.

12. How to be humble .

My small town has definitely taught me how to be humble. It isn't always about you, and anyone who grows up in a small town knows that. Everyone gets their moment in the spotlight, and since there's so few of us, we're probably best friends with everyone so we are as excited when they get their moment of fame as we are when we get ours.

13. To be well-rounded.

Going to a small town high school definitely made me well-rounded. There isn't enough kids in the school to fill up all the clubs and sports teams individually so be ready to be a part of them all.

14. How to be great at conflict resolution.

In a small town, good luck holding a grudge. In a bigger city you can just avoid a person you don't like or who you've had problems with. But not in a small town. You better resolve the issue fast because you're bound to see them at least 5 times a week.

15. The beauty of getting outside and exploring.

One of my favorite things about growing up in a rural area was being able to go outside and go exploring and not have to worry about being in danger. There is nothing more exciting then finding a new place somewhere in town or in the woods and just spending time there enjoying the natural beauty around you.

16. To be prepared for anything.

You never know what may happen. If you get a flat tire, you better know how to change it yourself because you never know if you will be able to get ahold of someone else to come fix it. Mechanics might be too busy , or more than likely you won't even have enough cell service to call one.

17. That you don't always have to do it alone.

It's okay to ask for help. One thing I realized when I moved away from my town for college, was how much my town has taught me that I could ask for help is I needed it. I got into a couple situations outside of my town where I couldn't find anyone to help me and found myself thinking, if I was in my town there would be tons of people ready to help me. And even though I couldn't find anyone to help, you better believe I wasn't afraid to ask.

18. How to be creative.

When you're at least an hour away from normal forms of entertainment such as movie theaters and malls, you learn to get real creative in entertaining yourself. Whether it be a night looking at the stars in the bed of a pickup truck or having a movie marathon in a blanket fort at home, you know how to make your own good time.

19. To brush off gossip.

It's all about knowing the person you are and not letting others influence your opinion of yourself. In small towns, there is plenty of gossip. But as long as you know who you really are, it will always blow over.

Grateful Beyond Words: A Letter to My Inspiration

I have never been so thankful to know you..

I can't say "thank you" enough to express how grateful I am for you coming into my life. You have made such a huge impact on my life. I would not be the person I am today without you and I know that you will keep inspiring me to become an even better version of myself.

You have taught me that you don't always have to strong. You are allowed to break down as long as you pick yourself back up and keep moving forward. When life had you at your worst moments, you allowed your friends to be there for you and to help you. You let them in and they helped pick you up. Even in your darkest hour you showed so much strength. I know that you don't believe in yourself as much as you should but you are unbelievably strong and capable of anything you set your mind to.

Your passion to make a difference in the world is unbelievable. You put your heart and soul into your endeavors and surpass any personal goal you could have set. Watching you do what you love and watching you make a difference in the lives of others is an incredible experience. The way your face lights up when you finally realize what you have accomplished is breathtaking and I hope that one day I can have just as much passion you have.

SEE MORE: A Letter To My Best Friend On Her Birthday

The love you have for your family is outstanding. Watching you interact with loved ones just makes me smile . You are so comfortable and you are yourself. I see the way you smile when you are around family and I wish I could see you smile like this everyday. You love with all your heart and this quality is something I wished I possessed.

You inspire me to be the best version of myself. I look up to you. I feel that more people should strive to have the strength and passion that you exemplify in everyday life.You may be stubborn at points but when you really need help you let others in, which shows strength in itself. I have never been more proud to know someone and to call someone my role model. You have taught me so many things and I want to thank you. Thank you for inspiring me in life. Thank you for making me want to be a better person.

Waitlisted for a College Class? Here's What to Do!

Dealing with the inevitable realities of college life..

Course registration at college can be a big hassle and is almost never talked about. Classes you want to take fill up before you get a chance to register. You might change your mind about a class you want to take and must struggle to find another class to fit in the same time period. You also have to make sure no classes clash by time. Like I said, it's a big hassle.

This semester, I was waitlisted for two classes. Most people in this situation, especially first years, freak out because they don't know what to do. Here is what you should do when this happens.

Don't freak out

This is a rule you should continue to follow no matter what you do in life, but is especially helpful in this situation.

Email the professor

Around this time, professors are getting flooded with requests from students wanting to get into full classes. This doesn't mean you shouldn't burden them with your email; it means they are expecting interested students to email them. Send a short, concise message telling them that you are interested in the class and ask if there would be any chance for you to get in.

Attend the first class

Often, the advice professors will give you when they reply to your email is to attend the first class. The first class isn't the most important class in terms of what will be taught. However, attending the first class means you are serious about taking the course and aren't going to give up on it.

Keep attending class

Every student is in the same position as you are. They registered for more classes than they want to take and are "shopping." For the first couple of weeks, you can drop or add classes as you please, which means that classes that were once full will have spaces. If you keep attending class and keep up with assignments, odds are that you will have priority. Professors give preference to people who need the class for a major and then from higher to lower class year (senior to freshman).

Have a backup plan

For two weeks, or until I find out whether I get into my waitlisted class, I will be attending more than the usual number of classes. This is so that if I don't get into my waitlisted class, I won't have a credit shortage and I won't have to fall back in my backup class. Chances are that enough people will drop the class, especially if it is very difficult like computer science, and you will have a chance. In popular classes like art and psychology, odds are you probably won't get in, so prepare for that.

Remember that everything works out at the end

Life is full of surprises. So what if you didn't get into the class you wanted? Your life obviously has something else in store for you. It's your job to make sure you make the best out of what you have.

Top Creators

1. Brittany Morgan, National Writer's Society 2. Radhi, SUNY Stony Brook 3. Kristen Haddox , Penn State University 4. Jennifer Kustanovich , SUNY Stony Brook 5. Clare Regelbrugge , University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign

[OPINION] Choose your democracy wisely

Already have Rappler+? Sign in to listen to groundbreaking journalism.

This is AI generated summarization, which may have errors. For context, always refer to the full article.

What is the best way to assess and choose candidates? This question must be taken seriously by every Filipino voter, especially now that the electoral campaign has officially begun and the May 2022 election is right around the corner.

Bringing democracy back into the picture

In the absence of real political parties that are supposed to present the bases for choosing candidates, the task of “voting wisely” is more difficult. Real political parties are expected to exact accountability from their party members before, during, and after elections. The task of the voter thus is just to scrutinize the performance and trajectories of the political parties of candidates.

Given that there is no real party competition to structure choices, we, Filipino voters, have to examine “everything” about the candidates: platform and messaging (especially priorities), character (integrity issues), track record in politics and governance, alliances, business interests, and personal background (educational attainment, family background, views on religion, gender, class, etc).

And we need to examine “the walk” of these candidates, not just “the talk.” To borrow the words of actress Angelica Panganiban that have gone viral lately: Kilatising mabuti ang mga manliligaw (assess your suitors thoroughly), halughugin ang biodata mula high school at college” (review their curriculum vitae from high school to college), alamin at tignan ang character references (evaluate character references), huwag magpapabudol at huwag sa magnanakaw (avoid scammers and thieves).

In this piece, I present yet another angle that further operationalizes that notion of “voting wisely.” I argue that voters have to consider the political regime that the candidates are likely to create or uphold if elected into office, i.e whether their rule will be democratic or not. I make the democracy discourse central because I think the Duterte government has been very successful in messing up our notions of democracy. We no longer seem to know what the requirements of a democracy are (e.g. extrajudicial killings as compatible with democracy?). Most importantly, many no longer seem to care what the requirements of democracy are (e.g. nakakain ba yang demokrasya? ). It is this apathy towards the presence/absence/benefits of democracy that we should guard against in this election.

I present three options here: (i) a democracy that accepts authoritarianism, (ii) a democracy that rejects authoritarianism, and (iii) a democracy that rejects both authoritarianism and elite dominance. I also present my examination and analysis of what kind of democracy each of the (presidential) candidates represent. My analysis of the candidates could be wrong. But I will insist on this one assertion: we need to talk about democracy again.

[Editorial] We have one, big democracy project. What to do?

Option 1: A democracy that accepts authoritarianism

This kind of democracy is obviously the “Duterte brand.” Despite the anti-democratic features of his regime, President Rodrigo Duterte was able to generate people’s consent (which is central to a democracy). He generated consent institutionally through a supermajority in Congress and the repression of critics, and directly/individually through the creation of “diehard supporters.” Because President Duterte merely captured and did not dismantle institutions of representation and participation, the Philippines, under his watch, could not easily nor categorically be labelled as non-democratic.

In political science, regimes that have both authoritarian and democratic features are often called either “semi-democratic” or “semi-authoritarian” or “hybrid” regimes. Such typology is often used to refer to East Asian democracies that do not necessarily follow the Western model of liberal democracy. Studies on these semi-democracies often revolve around examining Singapore, Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia – all of which have strong bureaucracies that have enabled them to “assist capitalism” rather than “leave the market alone” (this is why they are sometimes called “developmental states” – where government, not the free market, directs the nation’s economic development).

In these countries, governments are formed out of ruling parties and regimes are assessed based on the relative strength of ruling parties vis-à-vis the military and other state institutions. Despite having illiberal features, these regimes often allow some degree of independence of the press, protect certain (but not all) rights and liberties, and insist on the rule of law or citizen compliance of the law.

Because the mixture of liberal and illiberal features in these regimes is integral to their societies (i.e. they do not seem to want to transition to a Western-type liberal democracy model), they are often considered “stable.” State institutions are still discernible, the business of governance is linked to meritocracy-based bureaucracies, and there are internal checks on government non-performance or violation of internal rules and policies.

The Duterte brand is nowhere near this kind of hybrid regime. The Duterte regime merely captured state institutions for its own particularistic interests. It did not professionalize or mobilize institutions towards some national interest or development agenda. Rather, it just created a crisis (the drug war) and identified enemies (e.g. dilawan, drug addicts, communists, terrorists, imperialists) to consolidate people’s support. It created the perception of an “us” versus a “them.” Ironically, when a real crisis (COVID-19) hit the country, government’s incapacity to deal with crisis was revealed. The Philippines has been last on every list that has to do with COVID response or crisis resilience. To a very great extent, the “strongman rule” of Duterte turned out to be mostly rhetoric: he did not solve the drugs problem in six months, he did not jetski to Scarborough Shoal, he did not keep the promise that “by December 2020,” things will be “back to normal.” The Duterte administration is not about a successful experiment at strongman rule. It is about failed (fake?) promises and wasted political capital.

This is why there has been no rhyme or reason to government’s problem-solving endeavors in the past six years. Even with the onslaught of a global pandemic, President Duterte continued with his predictably unpredictable ways. No rule of law. No internal checks. No clear purpose. Just successful emotional and (a)moral appeals to the people. This is also why the Duterte regime is known more as an “authoritarian populist” regime rather than a semi-authoritarian one.

While the Bongbong Marcos (BBM)-Sara Duterte tandem vows “to move on from the past,” it clearly comes across as Duterte’s “successor” (i.e the tandem is not likely to reverse most of Duterte’s pronouncements). This “Uni-team” is not likely to break away from being authoritarian populist. In my calculation, however, both Marcos Jr. and Duterte Jr. are likely to be more populist than authoritarian – especially if they win with a wide margin. Even today, their rhetoric is “unity” and I wouldn’t be surprised if they will exert effort to draw electoral opponents into their fold once they are in power. So, there will likely be changes but I don’t think they will ever be able to create a political-economic system anywhere near the semi-authoritarian regimes of the East Asian models. In those models, politics is not all patronage-based and governance is not all hit-and miss. Technocrats, more than politicians (and more than political families!), are given premium.

One cannot move towards the “East Asian model” without rules, without collective purpose, and without mathematics. Like Rodrigo Duterte, BBM and Sara Duterte have declared oversimplistic promises and showed overrated achievements. They won’t be able to deliver even a stable semi-democracy.

So, to those who believe BBM and Sara Duterte will bring the Philippines to the level or likes of Singapore or South Korea: huwag magpabudol . That’s not going to happen. Not with political dynasties or oligarchic family corporations as their main driver of economic activities and the main beneficiary of the fruits of economic activities.

[ANALYSIS] Fulfilling the promise of a democracy

Option 2: A democracy that rejects authoritarianism; and Option 3: A democracy that rejects both authoritarianism and elite dominance

These two options have to be taken together because practically all of the other candidates have made claims espousing either one or both types of democracy.

But first things first: which among the presidential candidates genuinely rejects authoritarianism?

Having been allies of President Duterte’s governance and/or specific policies in the past, it is understandable that some quarters may consider Isko Moreno, Manny Pacquiao, and Ping Lacson to still be part of Option 1. This is a valid assertion especially for Isko Moreno who has repeatedly praised “the good things” that both President Duterte and the late dictator Ferdinand Marcos had done in their administrations. Yet, Moreno also distances himself from that past by offering himself as the “healing president.” This offer suggests an acknowledgment that even President Duterte had caused wounds that need healing.

Manny Pacquiao has also been a clear Duterte ally in the past six years but his claim to being part of the opposition is more apparent than Moreno’s because he exposed corrupt practices of the Duterte administration. While this may have been mainly for election purposes, it nevertheless earned him a place as part of the “opposition.” Pacquiao visited Duterte once in Malacañang during the period of filing of candidacy but he has not budged from his claim of government corruption.

Ping Lacson is a more complex character because he was not supportive of all of President Duterte’s policies and has positioned himself as an independent thinker and policy-maker. The alliance with Duterte was most visible only with Lacson’s support of the anti-terrorism law that was clearly weaponized against Duterte critics. Moreover, Lacson’s background as an enabler of Martial Law as part of the Philippine Constabulary from 1971 to 1986 is hard to overlook. As long as there are Martial Law victims who are still alive, Lacson’s human rights record (and therefore, his propensity for authoritarian ways) will always be questioned. Despite this, however, Lacson’s dominant image is that of a statesman rather than a police officer. In recent interviews, he has also been very vocal of the Duterte government’s excesses and omissions.

The two other candidates, Leni Robredo and Leody de Guzman, are obviously part of Option 2. Both were at the receiving end of Duterte’s authoritarianism. Robredo was ousted from the Duterte Cabinet very early on and all throughout the six years, she had to endure public criticisms of either being vindictive or incompetent – from Duterte himself and from Duterte’s supporters. De Guzman, meanwhile, represents non-institutional opposition to the excesses of the Duterte administration, especially in terms of the violation of human rights and workers’ rights.

Leni Robredo initially received some criticism over her pronouncement and seeming support for the National Task Force to End Local Communist Armed Conflict (NTF-ECLAC), but said criticism didn’t stick because Robredo’s human rights record is spotless. Despite confusing policy declarations, everyone could see that she was/is no human rights violator.

Regarding Option 3 – a democracy that rejects both authoritarianism and elite dominance: this is an ideological position that promotes the deepening of democracy, not just in politics but also in the economic arena. It carries with it a Marxist/Leftist critique of liberal democracy and economic liberalism. The Leody de Guzman-Walden Bello tandem is the main advocate of this position with their call for “systems change, not just regime change.”

But is the De Guzman-Bello tandem the only advocate of systemic change? All the other candidates who belong to Option 2 (those who do not accept authoritarianism) have intimated at some systemic change. Leni Robredo for example has taken a strong stance against ending contractualization, which suggests a class bias. Panfilo Lacson has repeatedly lambasted the pork barrel system and the misuse of public funds. Isko Moreno talks about “building better.” And Manny Pacquiao has been making the pitch for the prioritization of mass, public transportation and has declared his opposition to the privatization of public utilities.

[OPINION] Campaign promises are good, but don’t we have trillions in debts to pay?

It is not clear, however, whether the candidates outside the De Guzman-Bello tandem will govern with a class (worker-proletariat) bias. Even Leni Robredo who has worked as an alternative lawyer for workers rights cannot just dismiss the reality that her party, the Liberal Party, was part of the political alliance that created more, not fewer, class divisions in society. The “failed EDSA democracy” is a reality – it is a democracy that has not benefitted the masses, but rather, has become a democracy dominated by economic and political elites.

Despite that failed EDSA democracy, I think the De Guzman-Bello call for systems change is not gaining traction because it has been made without the backing of a unified class-based movement. Without this unity, the call comes across as weak – because if the various sections of the Left can’t agree on Leftist electoral appeals, how can it hope to generate support from outside of its ranks?

The options for democracy presented here are my approximations of the type of democracy (or authoritarianism) that the presidential candidates for the May 2022 elections are likely to institute, if elected president. But these options are also for us, voters, to think about – for as long as we question the state of our democracy, we may be a step closer to being actually democratic.

“Voting wisely” this May 2022 elections entails thinking critically about Philippine democracy – its past, present, and future.

And who is my personal choice? Ideologically, I lean towards Option 3 as I am a firm believer that we need to develop a democracy that will benefit the many, not just the few. But this election, I choose the presidential candidate who clearly represents at least Option 2. Someone who has not only weathered the authoritarian, populist storm that is President Rodrigo Duterte (and the Marcoses!) but has remained calm – and democratic – through it all.

Yes, that someone is a she . – Rappler.com

Carmel V. Abao teaches political science at the Ateneo de Manila University.

Add a comment

Please abide by Rappler's commenting guidelines .

There are no comments yet. Add your comment to start the conversation.

How does this make you feel?

[Newspoint] 19 million reasons

After polls, Filipinos urged to maximize democratic spaces more than ever

[OPINION] The long revolution: Voices from the ground

[OPINION] I was called a ‘terrorist supporter’ while observing the Philippine elections

Checking your Rappler+ subscription...

Upgrade to Rappler+ for exclusive content and unlimited access.

Why is it important to subscribe? Learn more

You are subscribed to Rappler+

Skip to main content
Skip to secondary menu
Skip to primary sidebar
Skip to footer

A Plus Topper

Improve your Grades

Importance of Voting Essay | Essay on Importance of Voting for Students and Children in English

February 14, 2024 by Prasanna

Importance of Voting Essay: A concept is well known by all democratic nations since most of the things are decided with elections. Different governors, mayors, judges, and presidents are all selected by the general population through the voting system, or else they are decided upon by the elected officials.

I personally believe that everyone should vote as everyone has a different opinion and in our Indian democracy we have the ability to choose who can preside over in the office, this also gives us an opportunity to have a say in this political world. The entire purpose of a democracy is to be able to have a say in the political scenario and this is to make sure everyone’s voice is heard and this is what makes up a democracy with everyone participating in it.

From a lot of the statistics, it is a known fact that young people don’t vote especially from the age ranging from 18 to 24. We can have different beliefs but this doesn’t mean you remove yourself from the electoral process. On hearing these statistics I was completely shocked because naturally, people tend to assume that everyone votes but that is not the case.

You can also find more Essay Writing articles on events, persons, sports, technology and many more.

Long and Short Essays on Importance of Voting for Students and Kids in English

Voting can be defined as a way of expressing one’s own preference or opinion. This is important as everyone can get a say in the crazy political world we live in and that is what makes up a democracy.

Short Essay on Importance of Voting 150 Words in English

Short Essay on Importance of Voting is usually given to classes 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6.

Citizens of the country constantly complain about how our political climate is bad and worsening day by day and the honest truth is we have a chance to change it for the better. To make these changes we must vote by taking an informed vote and casting it as you should remember every vote counts.

It is mostly the youth of the country from age of 18 to 24 that tend to not vote and this causes a huge backlash in the system as these are the votes that we need. If you don’t like the way your country is running then change that by voting and don’t just complain.

“Voting is not just our right but our duty as well”, this saying goes a long way as it tells us clearly we have responsibilities as citizens of the country. To make sure we citizens run and take good care of our country we must put in our votes. A lot of the time people choose to believe that a single vote won’t make much of a difference but that is far from the truth and people must realize it as soon as possible.

Your choice of voting can have extreme consequences on the people from around the world who mostly do not have the right to vote. We must realize that a lot of the lawmakers are responsible for the various policies, laws, and infrastructure of the country for the future years and we are responsible for how these policies, law, and infrastructure is to turn out by voting.

A lot of people in other countries like Afghanistan cannot vote and some even die fighting for this very right. Most war-stricken countries have had their first elections in recent years even though most of the time they are threatened by the Taliban and certain terrorists. Superpower nation like America set certain policies which can have far-reaching impacts on countries that don’t have the same freedom as freedom of expression or the right to votes.

Long Essay on Importance of Voting 500 Words in English

Long Essay on Importance of Voting is usually given to classes 7, 8, 9, and 10.

The process by which people can express their political opinion is known as voting. Citizens of the country express their political opinion by choosing the desired political leader. This political leader, if he is a lawmaker, will have a huge impact on the way the country will presently run and also in the future, so to make sure we choose the right leader in a time when the political climate is constantly changing and we should be responsible citizens and cast our vote.

It is important to understand that election acts as a pillar for democracy because when all else fails we can still choose the right person to run the country. By not choosing the right leader a lot of people can be affected in the sense it can have far-reaching consequences on people who have nothing to do with our country. So we must understand that voting for the right person can have an impact all around us and can affect our country for a very long time. An election makes sure that the government is of the people, for the people, and by the people.

In an election, it is important to have suffrage which is the right to vote in elections. In India, the age of voting is attainable only at the age of 18, and in most countries where people have the right to vote have almost the same age limit. The electorate usually never includes the entire population. This question of how to have the privilege of voting is quite important. A very notable characteristic of elections is the nomination of a person. The nomination is the process of officially suggesting somebody for the public office and after the testimonials and endorsements are the various public statements that can help support a candidate’s nomination.

The electoral systems play a very vital role in the election. The electoral system includes the voting system and constitution arrangements. This is the process that converts a voting system into a proper political decision which can have long term effects on the country and its people.

In the process of voting the first step is the tally of votes. This is the use of the different ballot and counting systems. After this step, the result is determined based on the tally. Usually, the categorization of these systems can be majoritarian or proportional. Once the tally is over the person with the most tally wins the election. Elected officials are responsible to the people of the country so during different periods they must return to their voters, this is done so the elected officials can seek mandate so they can continue in office. Elections are conducted during fixed intervals of time. Elections can have far-reaching impacts on different parts of the world.

Over the recent past, it has become quite common to talk bad about the current elected leader of any legislative assembly or parliament. At the end of the day, the fault-finding comes down to what’s wrong with the system and how democracy isn’t functioning how it should. However, when speculating all the problems it never really bottles down to what the people can do to strengthen the system and bring change to it. Just as it is the responsibility of the elected leader to provide for the people of the country, we need the people to do our job and correct the leader by making sure he represents the right things and this can be done so by selecting the right candidate.

The right to vote is one of the few pillars of democracy. Therefore it is important that one must vote if he is able to and contribute to the country. A citizen shouldn’t find a reason as to not vote as it must be a compulsive duty and must come from within. Citizens of the country constantly complain about how our political climate is bad and worsening day by day and the honest truth is we have a chance to change it for the better.

To make these changes we must vote by taking an informed vote and casting it as you should remember every vote counts. I personally believe that everyone should vote as everyone has a different opinion and in our Indian democracy we have the ability to choose who can preside over in the office, this also gives us an opportunity to have a say in this political world.

Picture Dictionary
English Speech
English Slogans
English Letter Writing
English Essay Writing
English Textbook Answers
Types of Certificates
ICSE Solutions
Selina ICSE Solutions
ML Aggarwal Solutions
HSSLive Plus One
HSSLive Plus Two
Kerala SSLC
Distance Education

nagpur News

Vote wisely to elect good leaders, reduce corruption

Visual Stories

By Gail Collins and Bret Stephens

Ms. Collins and Mr. Stephens are Opinion columnists. They converse every week.

Bret Stephens: Hi, Gail. I have to make a confession: Kamala Harris had a much stronger start than I expected. She appears competent, in command and she is connecting to voters — everything she wasn’t when she ran for president five years ago. I gather you’re not surprised ….

Gail Collins: Bret! Does that mean you’re going to vote for her? I was planning on torturing you until you joined the team.

Bret: I’m not there yet, though the rumored choice of Josh Shapiro, the Pennsylvania governor, as her running mate would go far to reassure me about a Harris administration. What do you think?

Gail: Certainly seems to make sense politically — guy from a very important state, with a moderate image that might reassure Democrats who are worried that Harris is too far to the left.

But Bret, can I take one minute to register a big howl about the fact that in a presidential election one vote in Pennsylvania is worth a trillion times more than one vote in, um, New York?

Nobody’s arguing that Shapiro is the best conceivable candidate in the country; he’s just maybe the best conceivable candidate from a critical swing state.

We are having trouble retrieving the article content.

Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.

Thank you for your patience while we verify access.

Already a subscriber? Log in .

Want all of The Times? Subscribe .

IMAGES

💌 Why you should vote persuasive speech. 10 Reasons Why You Should Vote
Persuasive Speech Why People Should Vote Essay Sample
Why My Vote Matters Essay
Why Voting Is Important (400 Words)
Essay on Why Should We Vote
COM165 Reasons why we should vote

VIDEO

Why we should vote for Janasena..?
Part: 4 of why we should vote for TSB
Part: 3 of why we should vote for TSB
why we should vote ?
WHY WE SHOULD VOTE BJP IN UPCOMING DELHI LOKSABHA ELECTION #election #delhi #loksabhaelection2024 🙏
Choose Wisely: Why Men Must Pick Women Who Choose Them (Sadia Khan)

COMMENTS

Opinion: Voting—and Voting Wisely—Are Acts of Practical Wisdom in
Voting and voting wisely is an act of practical wisdom. If we choose wise leaders, they will help make the rest of the society wiser too. Then everyone wins. Dilip V. Jeste, MD, is director of the ...
Why Voting Is Important
Participating in elections is one of the key freedoms of American life. Many people in countries around the world do not have the same freedom, nor did many Americans in centuries past. No matter what you believe or whom you support, it is important to exercise your rights. "Voting is your civic duty.".
Why Is Voting Important? Election Experts Explain
Voting is one of the most impactful things you can do for yourself and your community. On a macro level, it's easy to think that you're just one person and that your vote doesn't make much of a ...
PDF Why We Must Vote
Why We Must Vote essay by University of Baltimore lecturer Ron Kipling Williams, M.F.A. '16 Voting is our civic responsibility. It is one of the fundamental tools by which our nation has guaranteed our inalienable rights throughout our history—237 years now. Today we live in a rich, multicultural society. We have representatives in our
Most Americans say it's very important to vote to be a good member of
A separate analysis of 2020 turnout data suggests that the answer is yes. Among those who say it's very important to vote in order to be a good member of society, the vast majority (79%) cast a ballot in the 2020 election. Among those who say it's somewhat important to vote to be a good member of society, far fewer (43%) cast a ballot in 2020.
Professor Owen M. Fiss on the Importance of Voting
Sterling Professor Emeritus of Law Owen M. Fiss with Cara Meyer '22, who played a major role in bringing Why We Vote to fruition, at May 2022 Commencement.. In a concluding chapter, Fiss writes, "The right to vote is the means by which the ruled participate in the process of selecting their rulers and thus is essential for the fulfillment of the democratic purpose of the Constitution.
Five reasons that you should vote in every election
Voting can change your life. Here are five reasons to vote: In a democracy, you get a say in things that are important to you. Your vote holds elected officials accountable for their actions. It forces them to listen to you and the issues that most concern you. Your vote is your report card on lawmakers.
The power of your vote
The power of your vote. The problem with the usual call for citizens to "vote wisely" is that every single person who walks into a polling precinct on election day to fill out a ballot believes that he or she is doing precisely that: voting wisely. It is doubtful if any voter deliberately shades the designated oval space beside a particular ...
7 Election Facts to Show You Why Your Vote Matters
6. Democracy can't function without full participation, and early voting improves turnout. The rules vary state by state, but when residents have the option to vote early, they can head to the polls at a time that's convenient for them and avoid lines. South Dakota and Minnesota open up early in-person voting with an absentee ballot as ...
What makes a good political leader
Getty Images. The modern character virtues leadership researchers emphasise include humanity, humility, integrity, temperance, justice, accountability, courage, transcendence, drive and ...
15 Reasons Why You Should Vote in the US Election
The right to vote is something everyone, regardless of their other beliefs, should fight for. #4. Voting is an important tool for civic engagement. According to Robert Longley on ThoughtCatalog, civic engagement is "participating in activities intended to improve the quality of life in one's community.".
Why People should Vote
The laws enacted in parliament regarding education, investment, and the right to life determines the lifestyle other generations will lead. Therefore, many people vote to secure a bright future for their children, grandchildren, and the preceding generations. In addition, they vote to lead by example. A parent, older sibling, or friend ...
Why is voting important if you care about social impact?
Written out as a number it looks like $17,500,000,000,000. That's $53,000 for each American, or $129,000 for each vote cast in 2016. If you multiply all that spending through a 1 in 10 million chance of changing the outcome, in a swing state like New Hampshire, it comes to $1.75 million.
Why voting is important as a student
Why voting is important as a student. As election season approaches quickly, it is important for all of us to make our voice heard. As a student who wants change, it is important for other people my age to realize the importance of voting as well. We as young adults account for 50 percent of the voting population, yet only 19 percent of 18-25 ...
5 Reasons Why You Should Vote!
Here are five reasons why you should vote in every election. 1. Elections have consequences. Every vote matters. You have the power to make key decisions on the quality of life you want for yourself, your family, and your community. Voting is your chance to stand up for the issues you care about like affordable housing, women's health ...
These 32 Inspiring Leaders Make Their Arguments for Why Everyone Should
1. "To make democracy work, we must be a nation of participants, not simply observers. One who does not vote has no right to complain.". - Louis L'Amour. 2. "To vote is like the payment of a ...
Vote Wisely: Demand Honesty and Integrity
Demand Integrity With Your Vote. "America is a ship headed for an iceberg," Andrews warned. "People everywhere, regardless of their political views, can sense it. We may not have candidates in this election who can turn the ship around. But right now, we better vote for somebody who is going to shift our direction and avoid the iceberg.".
Electoral Politics 101: Why Elections and Voting Matter
This guide is meant as a long-term resource, rather than a quick how-to. We want you to have the background you need to engage effectively in electoral politics. This guide is a 101 on elections in America, from what elections actually determine, to specifics on how campaigns work, to why your vote matters. Make this guide work for you.
To Increase the Youth Vote, Address the Why and the How
First, we need to address the larger systematic issue of why young people don't think voting is important and, second, we must provide guidance to young voters through peer-to peer-contact about how to vote. This new generation—Generation Z—is more outspoken and politically conscious than ever. Yet as I continually speak with people my ...
Voting Wisely: The Best Thing We Can Do For Our Country
Single-Issue Voting. However, this issue is not just involving the Republican party or its candidates. One issue voting has been a problem both sides of the political aisle have been experiencing for decades. Voting wisely is the only way to make sure that the candidate we choose aligns with our beliefs-- all of them (or at least most of them).
[OPINION] Choose your democracy wisely
Option 1: A democracy that accepts authoritarianism. This kind of democracy is obviously the "Duterte brand.". Despite the anti-democratic features of his regime, President Rodrigo Duterte was ...
Importance of Voting Essay
Importance of Voting Essay: ... choice of voting can have extreme consequences on the people from around the world who mostly do not have the right to vote. We must realize that a lot of the lawmakers are responsible for the various policies, laws, and infrastructure of the country for the future years and we are responsible for how these ...
Vote wisely to elect good leaders, reduce corruption
With maximum number of illiterate casting vote, there are strong possibilities of tainted and corrupt leaders being elected to run the country. It is high time the educated lot realizes that ...
Trump Declines to Back Away From 'You Don't Have to Vote Again' Line
I'll straighten out the country, you won't have to vote anymore. I won't need your vote." Ms. Ingraham offered him an off-ramp: "You mean you don't have to vote for you , because you ...
Many Voters Say Kamala Harris's Race Is Not an Important Issue
Kamala Harris has long resisted attempts by others to categorize her identity. "I am who I am," she once said. "I'm good with it. You might need to figure it out, but I'm fine with it."
Kamala Harris Makes Quite an Entrance
Ms. Collins and Mr. Stephens are Opinion columnists. They converse every week. Bret Stephens: Hi, Gail. I have to make a confession: Kamala Harris had a much stronger start than I expected. She ...

Opinion: Voting—and Voting Wisely—Are Acts of Practical Wisdom in Society

Share this:

Why Voting Is Important

Americans Voting

Media Credits

Production Managers

User Permissions

Interactives

Related Resources

The Singular Importance of Your Vote—And the Steps You Need To Take Before Election Day

Regions & Countries

Most Americans say it’s very important to vote to be a good member of society

2020 voter turnout was highest among those who see voting as very important

How Americans Get Local Political News

Research Topics

Professor Owen M. Fiss on the Importance of Voting

In the Press

Schleicher Appointed the Meyer Research Professor of Property and Urban Law

Fiona Doherty Appointed Nathan Baker Clinical Professor of Law

John Morley Appointed the Augustus E. Lines Professor of Law

A life-changing habit: Five reasons why you should vote in every election

The Year in Hate & Extremism 2023

The power of your vote

Disclaimer: Comments do not represent the views of INQUIRER.net. We reserve the right to exclude comments which are inconsistent with our editorial standards. FULL DISCLAIMER

1. Young people play an important role in elections.

2. A single vote can make or break an election.

3. Taking time off isn’t always realistic, but more companies are giving employees flexibility to exercise their civic duty.

4. Registering to vote is a big step into adulthood and it’s possible to sign up before 18.

5. Voting doesn’t have to be inconvenient — many citizens can now vote by mail.

6. Democracy can’t function without full participation, and early voting improves turnout.

7. Registration complications keep people away from the polls, but signing up online can help guarantee citizens can cast a ballot.

7 Election Facts to Show You Why Your Vote Matters

What makes a good political leader – and how can we tell before voting?

Disclosure statement

Confusing confidence with competence

Practical wisdom

Evaluating political leadership

Education Abroad Advisor

Head of School: Engineering, Computer and Mathematical Sciences

Educational Designer

Organizational Behaviour – Assistant / Associate Professor (Tenure-Track)

Apply for State Library of Queensland's next round of research opportunities

15 Reasons Why You Should Vote in the US Election

#1. Voting impacts the future

#2. Voting isn’t a right Americans have always had

#3. Voting rights are under threat, and voting can help protect them

#4. Voting is an important tool for civic engagement

#5. Voting is essential to a representative government

#6. Voting holds politicians accountable

#7. Voting in local elections has direct impacts

#8. Voting impacts international relations

#9. Voting helps you stay informed on issues

#10. The United States, which is facing more threats, needs informed voters

#11. Many experts – and voters – believe the future of democracy is at stake

#12. Climate issues are on the ballot

#13. Many elections involve reproductive rights

#14. Immigration is another important issue

#15. LGBTQ+ rights need protection

You may also like

Academia in Times of Genocide: Why are Students Across the World Protesting?

Pinkwashing 101: Definition, History, Examples

15 Inspiring Quotes for Black History Month

10 Inspiring Ways Women Are Fighting for Equality

15 Trusted Charities Fighting for Clean Water

15 Trusted Charities Supporting Trans People

15 Political Issues We Must Address

15 Trusted Charities Fighting for LGBTQ+ Rights

16 Inspiring Civil Rights Leaders You Should Know

15 Trusted Charities Fighting for Housing Rights

15 Examples of Gender Inequality in Everyday Life

11 Approaches to Alleviate World Hunger

Why People should Vote Essay

Works Cited

If you care about social impact, why is voting important?

If you care about social impact, why is voting important?

Why is voting important? It’s not just about civic duty.

The probability of one vote changing an election

Governments are so large which raises the expected value of voting

What if you’re wrong?

Is deciding how to vote too much effort?