Did You Exercise Your Right to Vote? Why Not?

In a city that has approximately 4,500 voters it appears that only 452 made it to the polls to vote. Approximately 10% of our qualified voters actually voted. When you look at one city with a 90% deficit in voter contribution; what does that say for the rest of the country. We are a community of over 10,000 people where approximately 1/3 (45%) of our population is registered to vote. That means that less that 5% of our city’s population actually cared enough to get out and vote. This is why our country is where it is at.

Getting out and voting is the only way to initiate change. When you look at the numbers that were demonstrated in our city, you have to ask yourself why. Several observations that were obvious was the fact that there was absolutely no advertisement regarding our local election. Granted that there are four commission seats for five candidates, basically not a big deal to voters, because there is only the possibility of one new face; however there was a call for a Charter amendment asking to empower the commission. This is where your community’s foundation laws get changed, and when people don’t pay attention, rules and powers are changed; because you didn’t exercise your right to vote you cannot expect your irritation at the change to mean anything. If you truly cared you would have voiced your opinion.

Public participation is the only way a democratic system will work. With most of the country in an uproar over unemployment and foreclosures, that have devastated our country’s core, it is important to get out there and fight. One fights by exercising ones’ right to vote. You cannot sit and complain about the system if you are not willing to participate in the process. Otherwise, you are allowing others to make decisions for you and then you find that you are unhappy with the results. It doesn’t make sense.

We, as a nation, need to understand what is going on in our government. We cannot depend on others to make our decisions. In order to remain a free society we must exercise our rights and inform government, through our votes, that we are in charge and that they work for us.