Voting Rights Matter
Last week, I had to go to the courthouse to renew my car tag.
Ideally, I would never step foot in a courthouse considering my aversion to waiting in line, collecting forms, and general inefficiency, but long story short, we moved, I didn’t get a notice in the mail, and you can’t renew your tag online if they have an old address on file.
As I was walking the long hall to the Department of Revenue, a man stopped me. “Would you mind signing our petition?” he said. “We’re trying to get on the ballot.”
“I’m happy to help,” I said.
“Have you heard of libertarians?”
To be perfectly clear, in our current political system, I’m no fan of third-party voting. After the 2016 election — an election that led me to days/months/years of crying and drinking wine because of the victor — lots of people would tell me, “I promise I didn’t vote for him. I voted for Gary Johnson!”
I nodded through the tears and usually thought something like, “Well, you might as well have voted for Trump while the world burns.”
When people told me they were considering voting for third-party candidates in 2020, my husband had to restrain me. (This was no small feat since I was ridiculously pregnant with twins and regularly took out anything in a 3-foot radius with my belly.)
I’m not a fan of third-party voting when margins are razor-thin, and it seems clear (to me, at least) that one of the candidates might be an authoritarian, Nazi wannabe. (Too much? I have a flair for the dramatic.)
However, it’s not my business to tell people how to vote. (My husband is laughing while he reads this sentence.) But it is my business to do everything I can to make sure that all people who want to vote can exercise their right to do so.
As our country puts barriers in place to discourage and disenfranchise legal voters, it’s imperative that we do what we can to open all the doors others try to close. Letting people have a say in their government lies at the heart of democracy, and I would hope anyone flying a flag or declaring their patriotism is also ready to defend and protect these sacred voting rights.
People should be free to cast a ballot for the candidate of their choice — even when it’s Gary Johnson.
So, for this petition and all the others like it, where do I sign?