Why YOUR Vote Matters

 I’ll be honest, I get aggravated when I hear people say that their vote doesn’t matter.
They aren’t telling me anything I haven’t heard before. In fact, I have heard this phrase so many times that I have had to stop and consider for myself whether this was a valid point. But upon consideration of this perspective, I was reaffirmed why my vote and every single individual vote matters, and this is because no other person shares your exact identities, experiences, or points of view. Your vote is a reflection of who you are, where you’ve been, what you’ve seen, how you feel and think, what you expect from your government and most importantly, what kind of change you want to see in your community, your state, and your country.

As Election Day approached this year I prepared for the worst: complaints from people
that their votes didn’t matter, statements that they didn’t plan to vote, and that there was no need for them to. However, this Election Day, unlike the last I was pleasantly surprised by all of the passion, interest, and dedication I witnessed surrounding people voting, and their encouragement of others to vote as well. I was thrilled by this quasi-movement to “make voting cool” and for people to not only vote for their own self-interests, but in the best interests of others as well, because voting isn’t about creating a world that best suits yourself, but rather it is about creating a world best suited for the people around you so that we may co-exist, support one another, and be free to live lives that we are proud of. This Election season the Vote Everywhere program was capable of assisting in the creation of programs which allowed for easier voter registration, poll accessibility through transportation, and absentee ballot voting, but beyond these programs we were capable of engaging with students who not only voted, but were optimistic about voting, rather than pessimistic. It is these kinds of attitude about civic engagement that facilitates change, and I hope to see them perpetuated on UofL’s campus in the years to come.

-Brittany Greenwell
Vote Everywhere Ambassador (18-19)
brittany.greenwell@uoflelsb.org