So, you’re not planning on voting in this year’s presidential election. That’s fair I guess. I mean, look at our options. It’s between a rambling grown man who’s rhetoric closely resembles that of a four year-old having a temper tantrum, and then Clinton’s questionable past of cover-ups and blatant deceptions to the public.
Don't forget about the candidates for the other two parties, and that a write-in is always an option. The stigma behind these options is that they are wasted votes. While it’s true that the odds of a 3rd party vote or a write-in winning an election are extremely slim to none, there is no such thing as a wasted vote. Here’s a few reasons why you should get off your couch this November and go cast a vote; any vote.
When you’re sitting on your couch on voting date and stubbornly deciding to not vote, think about Alice Paul. The suffragette who was arrested on a B.S. account of “obstructing traffic” during a peaceful protest outside of the White House in 1917 and held in jail for seven months. Paul went on a hunger strike in prison to show her resistance against accepting her unfair imprisonment and how it was simply a tactic to silence her and her fight. Raw eggs were promptly forced through a tube that was put in her mouth and down her throat.
Think of Ida B. Wells and the National Association of Colored Women (NACW) being denied the right to march in NAWSA’s suffrage parade in Washington in the1920 unless they marched as a segregated unit. Think about her courage when her group ignored this and assimilated themselves right in the middle of the march anyway.
Think about all the intimidation and threats black men faced from white supremacists and the KKK at voting stations all throughout the South for decades. Despite being given the right to vote under the 15th amendment in 1870, various state laws and social stigmas prevented them from ever exercising that right.
Still today, in 2016, women and minority groups have the lowest voter turnout. Stop letting history repeat itself.
We can even bring this argument all the way back to our founding fathers. America was founded on the hope of democracy; of freedom. We broke away from the barriers and restrictions of a monarchy in hopes that we would ever have this right.
Think of the suffering and fighting endless people have gone through just to allow you to fill in a few circles ten minutes from your house. Allow your voice to be heard. You don’t like your options? Go write in who you do want.
Just go exercise the right that so many have fought for and that so many in other parts of the world would literally die for.
