Rights and wrongs
Emmy Jansen
MSMU Class of 2023
(8/2020) When Susan B. Anthony died in 1906, she did not see the fruition of her life’s work. Fourteen years later, the 19th Amendment would be passed and nicknamed in her honor, making it illegal to deny an individual the right to vote on the basis of sex. Women’s suffrage isn’t a topic that is often on our minds; I didn’t realize until last spring
that women had been voting for less than a hundred years. It can be easy to take for granted something that seems so unimportant today. It’s all too easy to say, "my vote doesn’t count," and "voting doesn’t change anything," but that wasn’t what Susan saw. She knew voting was an important right and a big step on the way to gender equality.
Women have only been voting for one hundred years. For most of us, women’s suffrage isn’t a big deal. From childhood, I knew that I would be able to vote once I turned eighteen, just like everyone else can. The road to this place, where in 2020 I can vote without discrimination on the basis of sex, was a long and hard one. Susan B. Anthony and other women petitioned,
protested, and lobbied until the 19th Amendment was passed. She dedicated her entire life to this cause and never got to see it fulfilled while she was walking on this earth. But we live out her life every time we vote, man or woman.
Women make up a slightly greater population than men in this country. But women, as a whole, are not only that. The diversity of the community is greater than just the gender. In most elections, the proportion of eligible women that vote is greater than the proportion of eligible men who vote. This is true of all races and ethnicities, except for Asian/Pacific Islander.
This is true of all ages until 64 years old. This is true for presidential and non-presidential elections. Women vote more than men, even though voting is only a recent part of their lives.
In my life, this has certainly been true. I voted for the first time when I was seventeen. In Virginia, if you will be eighteen by the next general election, you are allowed to vote in the primaries. June 11, 2019, I headed to the polls for the first time. It was my first truly "adult" action. Since then, I have voted three more times, twice by mail. It surprised me when
none of the other girls in my dorm had absentee ballots to fill out in November. Despite being older than me, none of them had voted before or even thought about it. It just wasn’t important to them. "I don’t know the candidates," they’d say. "I’m not a political person."
But the Constitution doesn’t say, "only political people have the right to vote." It says that no one shall be denied the right to vote on the basis of race or sex, thanks to Susan B. Anthony and countless others. The Constitution clearly defines our rights, many of which we use regularly, like freedom of religion or speech. I’ve never expressed my Second Amendment rights,
but I still have them. This is true of voting. Rights don’t define the only things we are able to do, they just protect the things that we see as important enough to need protection. If voting is one of these, it’s for a reason. It needs to be protected. It needs to be used.
It took my older siblings years before they voted, even after they turned eighteen. My brother voted for the first time this past March at twenty-three years old, but only because it was a presidential race. Claiming their place at the polls has not been a top priority for young people for a very young time. Despite being a politically active generation, very few of us
regularly exercise our right to vote. It’s true that voter turnout increases as age increases, but there are always exceptions. My mom volunteers at the polls for each election and she always encounters older adults who are voting for the first time.
I have an interest in politics, which might be why I’m more inclined to participate. But being a part of the American democratic process shouldn’t be an experience only shared by those who enjoy government. The United States is not just made up of people who vote; the United States government represents those that vote, those that don’t, and those that vote against it.
When someone becomes governor, they aren’t just governor to the millions of people who supported them. They are governor to the thousands that voted against them and the thousands that didn’t vote at all. It’s very easy not to care about politics. You can avoid news channels, never pick up a newspaper, and change the station on the radio. Actively participating in the
political process takes an amount of effort. You have to drive to the polling place or remember to request an absentee ballot before the deadline. You have to research the candidates and remember their names long enough to shade in a bubble. It would be much easier not to vote. But if it were truly so unimportant, Susan B. Anthony wouldn’t have an amendment named after her.
The right to vote has been something fought over for centuries. Whether it was about gender in 1920, race in 1965, or felon suffrage today, we have always known how important voting is to democracy. But we don’t treat it like we should. It takes me about ten minutes to do what Susan B. Anthony never got to. I get a sticker. I watch the results on TV later that night. There
are lots of ways to be politically active and have your voice heard. But voting is the easiest and most impactful way to influence public policy.
If we ever forget how important voting is, history reflects it. Voting was such an important right that it was denied to certain groups of people. But it was even more important, because they fought to get it back.
