Voting! Part One

So, this was my first experience voting. My mother is not American, so I'm really one of the first on her side to vote in an American election. Exciting, right?

What did I do... I woke up at 4am and waked to the polls with some other girls from my dorm (Some students decided to camp out in front of the polling places-- thats how long the lines were over here.

While I was waiting in line (polls opened at 7am-- pretty close to on time as well), I thought about some of the people back on campus who couldn't vote, for the dumbest reasons too, and some of the stuff we learned in our voter education class.

Of all the things people have told me, what hit me the hardest was that we should be wary of people trying to take away our vote for different reasons. That we should recheck our polling place, and recheck our forms of ID and definitely re check the clothes we wear (beyond that of general Obama and McCain wear which we all generally knew not to put on for voting).

Few things, in my opinion, are more offensive than someone trying to take away my vote. For me to be a disenfranchised American, who has done NOTHING wrong (in that I mean history breaking the law or something similar), and not be able to choose who leads my country, and thus, my family, is frightening in the least.

To me, telling me I can't vote is similar to saying, that while I'm a citizen, I'm not human enough to be allowed to vote, or for my vote to matter. That's a little dramatic, but then there's, "I don't care about your opinion," and that ones of the most dangerous statements one can make. Even worse is the, "Your opinion doesn't exactly mesh with what I want. And what I want is what is obviously best for everyone." Not that that isn't a common sentiment-- most people think that what they want is whats for the common good. And some people even take it far enough to presume others don't even KNOW whats best for them.

That's a little dicey, really. That is, if you're not a parent or guardian.

But taking away someone's vote is almost saying that. Or there are the situations where its a matter of intelligence and thinking that because someone isn't as formally educated, that they can't possibly understand politics.

If that is true, its because people make it that way, the media and the elitist. Not because politics is inherently hard to understand ( I'm going to come back to that in a later post, I think, because I definitely have a problem with this).

In any case. For the Election Day proceedings, I'll be posting more than once today. We're having a school-wide lock-in, where we can sleep in cafeteria building, and we've put up projection screens which are broadcasting different channels. Its really awesome. So I'll be around, as a member of the Student Government Association that is organizing this.

For me, at least, I figured that it was at least somewhat important that students knew what the goings-on were once they casted their ballot, you know? Its a lot of these peoples' first elections. With this in mind, I thought it was even MORE important.

Tonight, feel free to post with any of your voting experiences, happy or sad. I'm off to the polls at 4 (after our school rally) to hand out water bottles and snack bars for the people in long lines. Its an SSGA initiative that we're attempting. Completely unbiased (it has to be, considering you can't campaign at polls), we plan to hand out various foods to people in those multi-hour long lines-- all of which will be stamped with Your local Student Government Association thanks you for voting!"