Just like fall foliage, cider doughnuts, and sweater weather, the atmosphere is buzzing with this year’s midterm elections. Midterms can be as lackluster as dried-up leaves waiting to be raked away. The driving force that breathes life into the midterms, creating fodder for pollsters and pundits, is the name that does not appear on the ballot. While the POTUS may not be running, midterm elections are the opportunity for the electorate to weigh in on the president’s popularity by sending his supporters back to their home states.
Why is this midterm different from all other midterms? Why is election fever raising anxiety, creating excitement, fueling fear? With the bases loaded and a full count, will the opposition score? And if they do, will the umpire call it fairly?
This is the most consequential election in U.S. history, a time when the electorate must fully grasp the significance of the right to vote. The three branches of Congress have been whittling away our voting rights for years. Gerrymandering, Citizens United, billionaire influencers enriching PACs and super PACS, the axing of The Voting Rights Act, executive orders to end mail-in voting, state legislators who attempt to decertify elections, and The Big Lie are destroying the principle of “one person, one vote” that gives equal weight to every vote that is cast.
Voting is sacred, yet it has been taken for granted. The Constitution does not contain a right to vote. Historically, suffrage was left to individual states, with voting the purview of white, male property owners. The Constitution’s Elections Clause empowers the federal government to choose “the time, place, and manner” of congressional elections, enabling the creation of a national election day on the first Tuesday in November. Constitutional amendments gave the right to vote to all citizens, including citizens of all races, women and those over 18. Poll taxes were outlawed. However, enforcement mechanisms, like the Voting Rights Act, have been destroyed by Supreme Court decisions, with thus far, no Constitutional Amendments replacing such legislation.
When the Easthampton poll worker hands me my ballot on Nov. 3, I want to be mindful that it is a gift created by the blood and bones of leaders, martyrs, and ordinary people with extraordinary courage. Etched in my brain will be the images of 600 nonviolent warriors crossing the Edmund Pettus Bridge, billy-clubbed, beaten, and bloodied, for the right to cast a ballot, as I am doing today, and images of unrelenting suffragists like Alice Paul, who endured hunger strikes, jail, and jeers, yet demanded the right to vote. Those who fled tyranny, like my parents, never took the right to vote for granted. Yet voter turnout is abysmal at best: 51.42% for the 2022 midterms in Massachusetts. How can we refuse an opportunity that so many sacrificed so much to achieve, including their lives?
Election Day should, as it is in 16 other countries, be designated as a national holiday. Why put up barriers for working people by holding elections on a Tuesday, when citizens of 60 other countries who have weekend voting can proudly bring their children to the polls.
Options have become available to counter the many roadblocks to voting. Early in-person voting, paid time off to vote, and same-day voter registration vary from state to state. Despite President Trump’s failed efforts to get rid of it, voting by mail is available in all 50 states, but the rules vary from state to state. Voting can be daunting for those who have moved to a different state, who are not fluent in English, or who are voting for the first time. With threats of ICE agents showing up at the polls, mail-in and early voting provide a safer option for voters.
When my social work students tried registering their campus peers to vote, they were disappointed by the many negative responses: “What’s the point of voting?” “Politicians are all the same.” “Nothing ever changes.” There are no guarantees when we hand in our ballots, but choosing not to vote is letting others determine your fate. Is this the country you had hoped your children and grandchildren would grow up in? Can you dare to dream a vision of the America you want to live in? If so, then engage in the simple but powerful form of activism we call voting. Take it seriously. Study up on the candidates and the ballot questions.
One snowflake disappears instantaneously, but millions of snowflakes together can stop a train in its tracks. The fascists know this and they will use every tool at their disposal to retain their power, but the guardians of democracy are prepared. Organizers, from the ACLU to Indivisible, are recruiting and training election protection volunteers to make sure every registered voter can cast their ballot. From college students to baby boomers, volunteers are canvassing, phoning registered voters, and writing millions of post cards in a non-partisan movement to get out the VOTE! Should efforts be made to decertify an election, democracy defenders are planning to fight back with a sustained, nonviolent rapid response.
There is optimism in the air. Millions of Americans turned out on Saturday for No Kings voting celebrations. The Vote Is Sacred bus, a nonpartisan, multifaith, get-out-the-vote, 15-state bus tour, left Omaha, Nebraska, Oct. 3, and will be pulling into Flagstaff on Election Day.
Vote while you still can!
Sara Weinberger lives in Easthampton.