Voting Is Your Right

Dear Friends,
It occurs to me that one of the most important things for a candidate for County Commission to champion is the right to vote. It’s also an overlay for how I was raised and how I think.

One of my favorite memories of my Mom involves Election Day. No matter the year, no matter the political races on the ballot, as children, we watched as she voted in every single election—municipal, county, state, and national—and her actions spoke directly to her commitment to that privilege and as her right.  

In later years, even as she began to experience physical limitations, she made certain that, for every election, she cast her ballot—always picking up our neighbor and good friend, Alice Neihardt Thompson (no relation, but that’s a whole other story) with her to the polling site so that the two of them could act on their best intentions.
Moms are wise that way. She understood that, if we do not vote, either through choice or apathy, we relinquish our say in how we are governed. She was old enough to understand the commitment that others who came before her had made to allow women and Black Americans the RIGHT to vote.  

As we are approaching what would have been her 95th birthday—she was born on October 8, 1926—we are just six years shy of the 19th Amendment establishing the constitutional right of women to vote. In her stead, I’m compelled to urge any eligible person who has not yet registered to vote, to do so prior to the October 7 deadline.
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But to honor all of the moms on whose shoulders we stand, registering is not enough! Vote on November 3! That would be the best birthday present any mom could ask for.