Voting in America is an exercise in civic responsibility and, by extension, a civic duty.
If we truly embrace that one word in the Pledge of Allegiance most of us remember stumbling over when we were young — “Indivisible” — it means inseparable into parts. At first glance, the word is a clear reference to our country’s name. The United States of America is not united unless its states share a common purpose and are not divided.
But the pledge starts with “I,” not “We,” and the personal identification we make reciting it binds us to that most fundamental civic right accorded to a free people: The right to vote.
Walk into a Lynn polling place on Nov. 5 and you will check in with a poll worker equipped with an address list before receiving a ballot. Then it takes only a minute to pick up a pencil and fill in a tiny oval next to the names of your preferred candidates.
But filling out a ballot is the final act in the process of exercising the civic right to vote. The process begins with understanding that voting is essential to a democracy’s survival. When we put our hand over our heart and proclaim our nation’s indivisibility, we affirm the belief that when we stand together as Americans, our freedom is protected. Implicit in this affirmation is the sure knowledge that freedom is jeopardized by division and separation of beliefs in the absence of common ground for discussion and compromise.
The truest testament to voting’s importance in America is the fact that two of the most recent amendments to the United States Constitution deal with voting.
Passed in 1964 as Americans battled for civil rights, the 24th Amendment affirmed the right to vote by abolishing poll taxes. That affirmation was enshrined again in 1971 with the 26th Amendment affirming the right of an American citizen, 18 years old or older, to vote.
These amendments and the people who championed them remind us to resist at all costs the “lazification” of voting in America. Voting should not become a spectator sport confining participants armed with mobile devices to a couch or easy chair.
History has shown that tyrants are ready and willing to take the vote out of citizens’ hands with the same rapidity they employ in muzzling a free press. History also shows that people in oppressed countries will risk death and travel hundreds of miles and stand in line for hours to cast a ballot.
We honor those who fought to give us the right to vote and we honor ourselves as participants in a democracy when we take the simple steps required to register to vote and make the effort to become informed about candidates and ballot questions.
Voting is indeed an exercise. If you have any doubts about its importance, then ask a child to go to the polls with you on Nov. 5 and be prepared to answer their questions about why it is important to vote and, by extension, why it is important to live free.
