Select an issue concerning voting rights or practices and tell us your thoughts about it.
In Bennington Vermont, there is a widespread debate over the school’s track being redone. The people in Bennington continually vote every year to not fund the track being fixed, though every year Mount Anthony Union’s students rally behind the act that would allow the school’s track to be fixed, including myself.
During this time, one other act that also never made it past the select board was the ability for 16, 17 and Refugee people to vote in local elections. The defense for shutting down this extension of voting rights for people on the select board was that the students being able to vote would have the potential to pass the act allowing the track to be redone.
At first, it doesn’t seem like much, but it shows how active the concept of repression is instead of democracy. The idea that people who also contribute greatly to their communities do not have a say because they fear the outcome of their personal voting choices connects to a larger and deeper internalized concept that is exhibited in almost all voting rights issues, the fear of democracy and the refusal of equality on the basis of a understanding that the votes will actually represent all people’s choices.
Voting will never be accurate or equal until all groups, regardless of political belief, have the ability and access to voting. As a nation which prides itself on the ability for everyone to have freedom and access to success, how can we refuse to allow them that we offered? I have opened conversations with members of the select board and requested for my fellow students to write to give both younger people and refugees the right to vote locally because I strive to contribute to the development and growth of equality locally and globally.
