Yes, thank you! I went out and registered to vote the day after my 18th birthday (my birthday was a Sunday or I'd have been there on the day) even though it was February and the next election wasn't for 9 months.
Until the 2008 election, my vote has, effectively, never counted because I lived in a Republican state and our electoral votes always went to the Republicans, even though I voted Democrat, but I voted anyway. I voted, I canvassed, I called, I donated...and in 2008, it paid off, when my state went Democrat for the first time in 48 years.
In 2000, the entire US election came down to just over 500 votes in Florida (and was then awarded to the loser because he bullied the system, which our entire country has paid for ever since, but that's another story). Anyone who says voting doesn't matter should ask those 500 people. Or more importantly, ask the thousands of Democrats in Florida who didn't go the polls when their votes would've saved the country from the nightmare that ensued.
*ahem* I get a little worked up about this, can you tell? It just kills me to see people risking their lives to vote in other countries, and we are just so blase about it. And most of our country doesn't bother to inform themselves, either, but that's a WHOLE other can of worms...
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branchandroot
no subject
Date: 2012-11-04 04:27 pm (UTC)Until the 2008 election, my vote has, effectively, never counted because I lived in a Republican state and our electoral votes always went to the Republicans, even though I voted Democrat, but I voted anyway. I voted, I canvassed, I called, I donated...and in 2008, it paid off, when my state went Democrat for the first time in 48 years.
In 2000, the entire US election came down to just over 500 votes in Florida (and was then awarded to the loser because he bullied the system, which our entire country has paid for ever since, but that's another story). Anyone who says voting doesn't matter should ask those 500 people. Or more importantly, ask the thousands of Democrats in Florida who didn't go the polls when their votes would've saved the country from the nightmare that ensued.
*ahem* I get a little worked up about this, can you tell? It just kills me to see people risking their lives to vote in other countries, and we are just so blase about it. And most of our country doesn't bother to inform themselves, either, but that's a WHOLE other can of worms...