Why Vote ?

because

Your Vote Counts!

According to a press release issued on November 10, 2000 by the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate only "51 percent of eligible voters voted in the second closest Presidential race in more than a century." The power of just a relatively small number of votes became very clear to us all during the last presidential election. Members of the entire House of Representatives face elections every two years. Senators serve six year terms, thus one-third of the Senate is up for election every two years. According to Jonathan Mott, Ph.D. in ThisNation.com (http://www.thisnation.com/question/048.html): "Congressional elections in non-presidential election years are called 'midterm elections' because they occur halfway through a sitting president's four-year term. Voter turnout in midterm elections has hovered around the 35% mark for the past several years. In other words, slightly more than one-third of eligible voters actually turn out at the polls and vote in midterm elections. However, that figure jumps by 15 to 20 percentage points during presidential election years." If you vote in a midterm election it's as though your vote counts for three eligible voters. If you take into account that perhaps a quarter of the population is not eligible to vote because they are new immigrants or too young you can see that when you vote you are speaking for at least 5 people. Because elections are often close, especially local ones, anyone who persuades his friends and neighbors to vote in a certain way can potentially change the outcome of an election.

One or two congressional seats are sometimes enough to pass legislation that profoundly influences us all. There were quite a few very close votes in Congress in 2001. House Resolution 3090, the Economic Stimulus bill, passed the House by a 216-214 vote. The Chamber of Commerce favored this bill because it provided a stimulus to the economy after the shock of 9/11 by reducing business taxes. The AFL-CIO strongly opposed it because it favored business but did very little to ameliorate the hardship of workers laid off after 9/11. Though this bill passed the House it was narrowly defeated in the Senate.

The Trade Promotion Authority Act ('Fast Track') squeaked through the House in a 215-214 vote. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce strongly supported 'Fast Track' because it would have minimized Congress' power to modify trade agreements with other countries thus giving the President broader powers to negotiate them. The AFL-CIO, on the other hand, opposed 'Fast Track' because it rules out congressional action to include or strengthen workers’ rights or environmental protections in trade agreements. This Act has not gone into effect as the Senate has not yet taken up this matter.

Another very close vote was on House Resolution 2975, the Anti-Terrorism Authority Bill. This is a very controversial bill because it challenges the basic civil rights of U.S. citizens to due process, freedom from secret surveillance, etc. It would expand law enforcement's power to investigate suspected terrorists and beef up domestic surveillance. While most Republicans consider these new law enforcement powers an absolute necessity in fighting terrorism, most Democrats see them as a threat to the civil liberties, civil rights, and due process protections guaranteed individuals in the United States. It passed by the very close vote of 214-208 on October 12, 2001.

Why Should We Care?

Although most of us don't think about it much, government often affects our lives more than anything else. It can create more havoc than a bad romance, more financial ruin than a stock market crash and more physical damage than a natural disaster. Government controls most of the schools we send our kids to. It decides what's right and wrong -- or at least what we can be put in jail for. Government can draft our young and send them to war, or keep our country at peace. Government can protect our civil liberties or withdraw them. Government can control where we work, travel and live.

Our forefathers had great foresight in creating a system that has many checks and balances, that allows every citizen to have a voice and that distributes power broadly. However, our system depends on a civic-minded populace that educates itself on issues of local, regional, national and even international concern. For our nation to run properly we as citizens must groom and elect well-meaning and well-informed representatives who do their best to shape government so that it creates a working system of common agreements and functions that best serve us all.