The importance of voting

By Sterling Fichter

September 24, 2012

Voting in these United States of America, at least currently, is not near as popular as it once was.

Throughout the later half of the 19th century, roughly 75% of the entire U.S. population voted in the presidential elections. In the latest modern elections, the turnout was slightly over 50%. In the 19th and early 20th centuries not everyone had the right to vote.

However, with the passage of the XXIV and XXVI Amendments of 1964 and ‘71, each American citizen over the age of 18 has had the un-taxed right to vote.
Why then do Americans not turn out to vote in larger numbers? Why is it important to vote at all? For various reasons many Americans do not care about politics.

However, more than likely at some point in their lives they will curse the government for messing around in their private lives whether it is because of taxes, regulations, or laws.

I therefore argue that it is more important now than it ever has been before, and that, I believe, is because of the size of this leviathan-like federal government. In a republic such as ours, voting is thus an essential mechanism to defend our rights and it also gives us a voice.

We all joke around that it’s my right to do this or that: to voice my opinion about a football team, to smoke, or simply to play your Xbox 360. While some of these are more serious than others, it nonetheless brings to light a good point, that we as human beings do in fact possess rights.

However, the more important ones such as the right to free speech, assembly, press, privacy, and religion, the right of the people to keep and bear firearms, the right to know what crime you might be charged with, as well the right to a jury and a fair trial, the unmentioned rights of the 10th Amendment, and of course the right to vote, are all rights which each and every one of us should know and care to uphold.

These are the very rights that our republic was created to defend from foreign invasion, and as WE THE PEOPLE are the true sovereigns on whom our government derives its power from, it is our responsibility to hold it accountable from oppressing us and violating our rights by holding our representatives accountable through voting.