“Oh, You’re a first time voter? This election is the best first election!” I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve heard that said since election season began. The truth is, I’m not so sure that this is the best election for a newly registered voter. Don’t get me wrong, I’m excited to have a vote to cast, but like many new voters, I wasn’t sure who to vote for; so, I sat down did a lot of research and news watching, and found my pick. I was ecstatic, I thought the candidate would stay the course, and I was wrong. Now I’ve done a little more research and news watching, and I’ve chosen a new candidate to vote for, and I can now just wait and see what happens in November.

In my previous article, I mentioned very briefly that I was disabled, and that has played a very large role in shaping my political opinions. In fact, that was one of the first things I looked at when I was researching candidates (I’m a politics nerd, don’t judge). After disability, I looked at healthcare policies, and then so on and so forth. Now, I knew going into this that I wasn’t going to agree with every candidate on every issue, in fact, I have yet to hear of an election where that’s happened.

Another thing that played a big role in choosing a candidate to throw my weight behind was my gender. To some, that may sound foolish, but I have to know where they stand on things like access to contraceptives and other things, like the wage gap. Since the land mark case of Roe v Wade, gender has been thrust into the national spotlight and has been kept there with pieces of legislation like the Lilly Leadbetter Fair Pay Act in 2009, which like the title implies, enforced the idea of equal pay for equal work, something that the U.S. Women’s National Team is fighting for right now.

Being a first time voter can be scary and stressful because of all the choices and realizations you have to make about who you are and what you believe, but you are not alone, many make this choice every year.