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| The California primary elections are today. Beverly Congdon, the Opinion page editor, encourages you to vote! |
The importance of voting today
Beverly Congdon | 2/5/08 | Opinion
s the Editor of the Grizzly Gazette’s Opinion page, I encourage everyone and anyone 18 and older to vote today. Unfortunately the quickest conclusion most youth make is that the vote of an individual citizen is insignificant. In fact, the voter turnout percentage in 2004 was a mere 64 percent, and this is the highest voter turnout percentage since 1968! Nationwide youth turnout (citizens form age 18 to 29) was 47 percent, the lowest percentage of all the age groups.
So why vote? After all, it is the vote of each state’s electors that directly elect the president in the general election. But today our vote brings two candidates one step closer to becoming president. Your support for a particular candidate won’t count unless you vote!
Today we also vote on individual issues: the propositions. Our vote directly passes or doesn’t pass these propositions.
Think one vote doesn't count? In 1845 it was ONE vote that brought Texas into the Union. In 1868 ONE little vote saved President Andrew Johnson from impeachment. In 1876 ONE tiny vote gave Rutherford Hayes the presidency of the United States. In 1939 ONE itsy bitsy vote passed the selective service act. In 1960 ONE teensy weensy vote per precinct elected John F. Kennedy President. Still think one vote doesn't count?
Granite Hills High School teachers have emphasized the importance of voting.
“It gives us our chance to voice our opinion to our elected representatives. I honestly feel, after voting, that I have the right to complain if my representatives do not do a good job,” said Mr. Lambie.
We should also vote in respect of all our fallen soldiers. In Porterville’s Veteran’s Park a medic helicopter that evacuated injured soldiers from Vietnam stands as a monument to Porterville’s fallen youth. Of all cities in the United States, Porterville has the highest death rate per capita in the Vietnam War. It was the Vietnam War that pushed Congress and President Nixon to lower the voting age to 18.
“Voting is a right we have and it provides an opportunity to have an opinion that means something. So many people have died for me to have that right. I would be less than grateful if I did not exercise that right,” said Mr. Ruckman.
To not vote is downright insulting to all the soldiers who died to preserve that right. Think of all the youth from this community that are serving overseas in Iraq or Afghanistan. Everyday they risk their lives so that America remains as one of the few nations with this individual liberty.
So vote for your preferred Democratic or Republican presidential candidate. Together we can send two candidates closer to becoming the forty-forth president.
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