It’s easy to think of your measly, individual vote as just a drop in the bucket among millions of other votes. But rather than viewing it this way, let’s instead look at the massive amounts of time, money, and effort devoted to manipulating, discouraging, or restricting your ballot. If corporations and politicians care about your vote so much, maybe you should as well.
Tomorrow’s midterm election feels like the most important one in my life so far, and we are being flooded with propaganda left, right, and center. PACs and megadonors pump millions of dollars into their chosen candidates and help buy them trashy TV ads or data center-powered social media bots all to get your vote. These ads will weaponize religion and your inability to afford gas or groceries, while also stoking hate towards their boogeyman of choice: immigrants, trans people, law enforcement, the wealthy, etc.
Redistricting, or Gerrymandering, has been going on for hundreds of years and is a key method of voter suppression. I’m not a political scientist, but essentially this happens when a state (typically in the South) redraws its congressional districts to give a demographic advantage to the ruling political party. While this does happen in blue states, recently in California and Utah, the most common example happens when a southern state carves up its cities (because urban areas skew to the left), to weaken the Democrats’ chance of winning congressional seats.
For example, I missed out on voting for Aftyn Behn in Nashville’s special election last year by one street. I was one street away from living in Tennessee District 7 because instead of Nashville having its own congressional district like it should, the city is divided into three districts that also include huge swaths of surrounding rural country. Because of this, even though Nashville is a massive blue pocket in an otherwise red state, the voting map dilutes that pocket into thirds so that only Republican congressmen get elected.
Gerrymandering is nothing new, but what is new is our Department Of Justice filing lawsuits to de-certify a state’s election, but only if the Republican loses (see Alaska). As is the FBI seizing ballots or masked federal agents lingering around polling places to intimidate voters like its Russia. The Department of Justice, run by Trump’s personal lawyer Todd Blanche, just asked the Supreme Court to throw out 20,000 “suspected non-citizen voters” from being counted in California. They assembled this list with AI and aren’t even sure about the names themselves and it is the day before the election.
This administration has also been desperately trying in vain to pass the SAVE America Act which would add more steps and verification for Americans to vote. This massively affects married female voters, given that the last name they take from their spouse won’t match the maiden name on their birth certificate. This especially harms lower-income women that might not have access to or know where their birth documents are and don’t have the means to track them down. Many legal citizens would be deterred from voting if this bill passed.
It shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone that the administration that lost 70 court cases and has zero real evidence about the 2020 election being stolen are trying to get their fingers into this year’s election. Whenever someone from the MAGA cult is at an oversight or confirmation hearing, they refuse to admit that Donald Trump lost the 2020 election. Regardless of your political stance, you must see how sowing doubt in our voting process, our democracy as whole, is INCREDIBLY dangerous.
In 2024, when the Democrats held the White House during the Presidential election, Republicans won everything. They won the presidency, the Senate, and the House. What changed between 2020 and 2024? Why was the 2024 election legitimate but 2020 wasn’t? Again, we just come back to the fact that there is zero evidence for either election being “stolen”.
Just concede defeat, shake hands, and try again next time like countless American politicians have done for hundreds of years. Donald Trump loses an election and NOW there’s an issue with our entire democratic infrastructure? This has literally never been a problem until one billionaire simply could not accept that he lost fair and square. Mind you, this is the same man that has literally published books discussing his business strategy of: “no matter what happens, claim victory and never admit defeat.”
This is all to say that when we have corporations, foreign nations, the richest man in the world, and our own president trying to restrict or sway voters, that is all the evidence you need that your vote fucking matters. It matters A LOT. No matter which way you lean, vote with your heart today.
Embrace your civic duty as it is not easy to sift through all the bullshit thrown at you and decide on who to vote for, leave work, find your polling place, wait in a line, and be mildly inconvenienced. It won’t be fun, but it will be the most American thing you do this year, maybe in your life, and for that you should be proud.