We have a voice when we vote – we silence that voice when we don’t vote.
The next opportunity to vote is in this fall’s midterm elections. That’s halfway through a president’s four-year stint in the White House when the entire 435-member House of Representatives stands for election, along with a third of the US Senate.
We’re moving through the 2018 midterms right now with primaries behind us and the general election next month. In Massachusetts, we will fill the nine seats of our congressional delegation, along with one US Senate chair.
At the state level, the slots for all 200 Beacon Hill lawmakers are up for grabs along with choices for Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, Attorney General, Auditor, Treasurer, and Governor’s Council. There are also three questions on the ballot for which we get to make important decisions on health care, transgender rights, and campaign finance reform.
During the 2014 midterms, less than half of the Commonwealth’s eligible voters showed up to the polls. Nationally, the turnout was the lowest in almost three-quarters of a century. That needs to change. Americans need to vote, and if not yet on the voter rolls, they need to register, and then stand up and be counted.
Midterm election results are often viewed by politicians, pundits, and the press as the people’s take on how they think their state or nation is being governed and whether or not government is heading in the right direction.
Along with elections come public opinion polls. These polls are used by politicians who study them for a living and use them to help shape public policy.
People polled who say they don’t vote are categorized by pollsters as “not likely voters” and are quickly dismissed by those holding elective office.
“Not likely voters” miss the opportunity to further inform decision-makers. They disenfranchise themselves, lose power, and end up sidelined in the political discourse. It’s a self-inflicted wound.
For some, it may seem too early to be concerned about midterm elections. In fact, the media often claim that most of us don’t even start to think about the November elections until after the World Series.
This year, the “Boys of Summer” might play their final game on Halloween with Election Day less than a week later. That doesn’t leave much time to get to know candidate positions or consider ballot questions, never mind decide whether to vote at all.
Failure to vote can reflect public anger, frustration, or apathy. If it does, those emotions need to be converted into enthusiasm, energy, and action at the ballot box.
In Massachusetts and across the country, recent electoral victories of women, young candidates, and people of color represent a generational, racial and gender shift in politics, but they also demonstrate a call for change. And that is what midterms can produce.
Case in point, in the Bay State’s 7th Congressional District primary last month, voters chose a younger woman of color, Boston City Councilwoman Ayanna Pressley, over 20-year Congressman Mike Capuano. Pressley garnered almost 60 percent of the vote and will be the first woman of color in the Massachusetts Delegation, as she has no General Election opponent. Her campaign theme was “Change Can’t Wait” – and it didn’t.
By voting, we exercise our duties, privileges and obligations of citizenship. It’s a highly visible and communal act that binds friends, families and neighbors together as community. We may not all agree with one another and will certainly vote differently on a variety of important matters. Nevertheless, we stand together in peaceful and orderly lines at schools, town halls and auditoriums across the country, on the same day, for the same purpose, and that is to freely exercise a democratic right that keeps this experiment in self-governance alive.
Voting allows us to alter the course of current events and influence the future. Not voting is an endorsement of the status quo. It’s our choice.
Jack Clarke is the director of public policy and government relations at Mass Audubon.
