Voting in America | Teen Ink

Voting in America

February 11, 2008
By Anonymous

The numbers are in. All Americans have the right to vote, as soon as they turn the age of eighteen then every single one of them can vote. If you're blind there is brail, if you’re deaf the elections are done on the computer so you can read it. You don't have to have a specific amount of money or own a certain amount of land, men and women can vote and all races can vote. Yet still barely half of all eligible voters show up and cast a ballot at each election. The number does rise when presidential elections come around but it still makes no sense. Men and women sacrificed their lives for us to be able to take a few minutes out of our day and vote. We, the people get to have a say in our government. Foreign countries would literally kill for a chance like that and yet many Americans take advantage of their rights.

What irritates me the most is people will choose not to go and vote and yet they still want to complain about how our government is run. From the minute, that our great legends in history like Thomas Jefferson sat down and came up with a government they included the people fully and made sure the right was there to vote. It took a little longer to initiate voting for all sexes and races but it was a battle we won. How can we not appreciate something we worked so hard for?

The topic of this essay is to tell whether voting should be mandatory for each and every person. It would be so easy for me to answer yes to that question; however, doing that would violate our unalienable rights of the constitution. Everyone in America has freedom that cannot be taken away. Forcing people to vote would make us look hypocritical to all the other foreign countries.

I believe that even though we should not force each individual to vote we should promote voting even more. People will eventually realize how much voting actually means to the government, and just how much their one vote can change the man who leads our country, or the rate of taxes, or who is elected onto their child's school board.

I also believe we need to promote all elections not just the presidential one. Electing the president is a very important election but people also need to realize that the people elected on their school board will make rules for their children, the taxes voted on will affect them, and when electing a governor they will need one to work with them. If people truly knew how much of an impact the other voting had I believe the voting rate would go up noticeably.


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