Voting Rights in the Modern Society and Why Every Vote Matters

In the article “who counts”, it talked about people voting rights and it also mentioned that people feel that their one and only vote doesn’t really count towards anything because they feel that it is a complete waste of time. “Public confidence in the power of one person, one vote is at an all-time low” (Lithwick, 2019). This quote is telling us that some people do not care if they vote or not because they are one of those people that tell themselves “my vote won’t matter anyway out of millions of people”. NPR-Marist University did a poll in 2018 and that resulted in “47% of the respondents indicated that they lacked faith that all votes cast would be counted fairly, nearly 5 in 10 nonwhite voters reported that they believed it is unlikely that all votes would be counted.” (Lithwick, 2019). Half of the nonwhite voters believe their vote would not be counted towards the election.

There is a big lack of confidence in today's society when it comes to voting. The people want fairness, and more security to make sure hackers do not cheat the system and ruin election. Native Americans were the first Americans and yet their votes are discounted in advance of the coming election. “The U.S has struggled to define who counts as an American and who does the counting” (Lithwick, 2019). It is interesting that the U.S claims themselves as true Americans even though they are not the first people to be on the U.S territory. “The administration claims that the 14th amendment can be amended by executive order to preclude birthright citizenship” (Lithwick, 2019). This quote from the article explains that the administrations can take our 14th amendment right, which is the birthright citizenship. I think a lot of people can agree with me and say that is not the right thing to do. They can try and take our birthright citizenship away, but they are going to have to go against the amendment first and that is not going to end well for them.

Voting is a privilege that many people take for granted. Voting allows us to voice our opinion and vote for the people who we believe that are willing to make this country a better home. I consider myself as 47% of the people who believe voting counts are not fair on election days. The reason why I believe that is because, technology is so advanced nowadays that the secret corporations can easily hack the voting count, and make someone who is supposed to lose, win. If my family were to be Hispanic and I was to be born in America and the administration says, they are taking my birth citizenship away, I know they are going to face serious consequences for violating the 14th amendment. I disliked the fact that they questioned if Native Americans should be allowed to vote back then, even though they were one of the first people to touch the U.S soil. It’s great to know that in 1965, the Voting Rights Act put an end to each and every state on whether or not Natives were allowed to vote.

Another thing that I don’t like is people should vote no matter what, even if they believe their vote won’t be counted, it doesn’t matter! Maybe it will count towards the total. People can’t just assume “Why should I vote? It’s a waste of time and energy. It’s not like one vote is going to affect the vote count anyway”. People need to keep in mind that not everyone has the right to vote. Some people take voting very seriously, I remember the day one of my Hispanic family members was granted the privilege to vote for our country, she cried knowing that she is an American citizen who went through hell just to be part of this country and now was given an opportunity to voice her opinion on what she thinks will be best for our beloved country. If I’m not satisfied with the results, I can just vote again four years from now. These are my thoughts and experience when it comes to voting, I hope people think about each other and not just for themselves when they go out there and voice their opinions.