We the people . . . why do we vote?

“Don’t boo. Vote”. These words from Barack Obama articulates - if you want your voice to be heard by the government then say it by voting. If you don’t like someone in an election, don’t boo him/her. It's just a waste of time. Instead vote the person you think is right for that position. Voting simply doesn’t mean that you are voting for a person; you are voting for things that relate to society... such as laws to make our country, community and state a great place.

A key benefit of voting is, you have a say of how you want the government to be structured and who is going to be your leader. We the people, are getting to choose how we want our country to be in terms of equal power for all of the citizens. This is known as democracy - world's most common government structure. The birth place of democracy is Greece. I was fortunate enough to stand among the pillars of Acropolis during the spring of 2017.

U.S Constitution says, “For the people, by the people”. Voting is a fair way to elect a person or thing. As people say, majority rules! We the people, have an equal right to vote! We vote, to morph our government into the way we want it. Voting is essential for our government to function. If all the citizens do not vote, we the people wouldn't have a president and eventually, our laws wouldn’t be fair for us. Our country would go haywire! It is our duty to vote as we are part of the government system too. Remember, “For the collective, by the collective”.

We have an equal right to vote as stated in our constitution. After the Civil War, African Americans were permitted to vote under the 15th Amendment in the constitution. However, many people attempted to prevent that by giving them literacy tests. If you scored 100% then ONLY would you be allowed to vote. You couldn't get one question wrong. These tests were made for people who didn't have any education above fifth grade. The questions were meant to trick people and make sure they didn't pass. The test had questions such as "Print the word 'vote' upside down but in correct order" and "Spell backwards, forwards". ONLY African Americans had to take the test. Even if they did pass, it would be a very small percentage of African American people voting. I'm glad that now none of chaos takes place and EVERY citizen above the age of 18 is allowed to vote.

As I had mentioned in the beginning, voting simply doesn’t mean government voting, other types of voting practices exist too. In many corporations, there is an employee of the month or most creative person of the quarter. This selection process is based on voting. People nominate the employees and then they vote to choose the suitable candidate for that award. And of course, this is present in our schools too. There is a voting framework in everything whenever there is committee based decision process. Let's remind ourselves what JFK once said - "The ignorance of one voter impairs the security of all." While voting has many modes behind it, voting continues to bring up democracy that results in greater peace.