How Today’s Vote Impacts Tomorrow
During last week’s blog we shared a confession with our readers, which is that we, like many others, dread the voting process. However, one of our motivations for showing up to the polls to exercise our right to vote is understanding The History of Voting While Black in the United States. In today’s blog, we will share another motivation for exercising our right to vote, which is understanding how the ballots we cast today influence the lives of ourselves, and our children, in the future.
Voting impacts just about every part of our life, whether we realize it or not. We vote to allocate federal money to our community, decide where our taxes will be allocated to, improve our children’s education, improve the safety of neighborhood, improve the condition of our roadways, improve the conditions and pay for our workforce, increase our access to quality healthcare, and so much more. The other thing that they don’t tell you in school is that the impact of our vote may be slow at times. For example, the recent Supreme Court overturning of Roe v Wade was years in the making, as the various elected Presidents of the USA have been appointing judges, in favor of their political agenda, to serve on the Supreme Court indefinitely.
In addition, many people believe that voting starts and ends with the presidential election. That couldn’t be farther from the truth! In fact, if you want to truly see the difference your vote can have on the community in a shorter amount of time, then we encourage you to vote in your city’s local elections. As mentioned previously, voting impacts nearly every part of our daily lives, so that is hard to capture in just the presidential election. Instead, we have Congressional, State, and Local Elections, in addition to Presidential elections to elect representatives for all three branches of government.
Presidential Elections
The executive branch represents the President of the United States of America. The presidential election occurs every 4 years and it determines who will serve as the Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces, implement, and enforce the laws written by Congress, and to appoint the members of the Cabinet. The Cabinet is an advisory body that serves a leadership role on the 15 executive departments that range from Department of Agriculture to Department of Housing and Urban Development to the Department of Labor. The President is also responsible for appointing the members of the Judicial Branch, aka the Supreme Court Judges. The presidential election tends to have the best voter turnout, with a record 67% voting rate amongst the eligible voting population during the 2020 presidential election.
Congressional Elections
The legislative branch is made up of both the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives, which together are known as the U.S. Congress. The role of congress is to make laws, declare war, confirm or reject presidential nominations, and execute their investigative powers if need be. Congressional Elections occur every 2 years and determine who will represent you and your state in Congress. These positions are crucial, as these elections also determine which political party, Democratic or Republican, will hold the majority in Congress. In other words, these elections represent how productive the President elect will be, what laws may be passed or changed during a President’s term, what the annual budget for the country will be and where funds will be allocated (federal agencies, interest on debt, student debt, Social Security, Medicare, veterans’ benefits, etc.) as well as whether the country will declare war. As you can see this election is a huge deal; however, the last congressional district election in 2018 had a merely 50% voting rate amongst the eligible voting population.
State and Local Elections
All other powers not granted to the Federal government are reserved for State and local governments. Each state government is modelled after the federal government, as they each have an executive (Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State, Auditors, Commissioners), legislative (State Representatives, who approve the state’s budget and initiate tax legislations), and judicial branch (State Supreme Court Judges that hear appeals from lower court rulings). Local governments, on the other hand, are granted power by the State their elected officials (mayors, city councils, etc.) are responsible for police & fire departments, parks and recreation services, housing services, emergency medical services, transportation services, municipal courts, vehicle violations, land development, school districts, public works, etc.
Due to the frequent contact Americans have with their State and local governments, elections can take place various times throughout any given year. These elections are where citizens can vote on the elected officials above who will carry out the responsibilities described. In addition, to these elected officials, ballots often include questions surrounding amendments to the state constitution or local laws, such as voting on the legalization of marijuana, the cancellation of student debt, taxes, allocation of funding, and so much more. Despite the frequent state and local elections and despite how impactful these elections are on our daily lives, their voting rates are far less than the voting rate for other elections.
As you can see, voting directly impacts our daily lives today and, due to the terms that elected officials serve, it also impacts our daily lives of the future. It is important for us to not only vote during the Presidential election, but it is equally, if not more, important to vote during the congressional, State, and local elections. And we know what you’re going to say, “that sounds like a lot.” To that we respond with, tune in next week as we share our tips and tricks for surviving the voting season.
