ILLUSTRATION: ELANA EMER
Well, to keep it straightforward, it is exactly what it sounds like. A GOTV initiative focuses on spreading the word about the importance of being engaged in your city, province, and country. At CEYC, we’ve taken it upon ourselves to let y’all know who’s running, when elections are, how you can vote, and where you can vote.
But first, it seems fitting to start with why you should vote.
Why Vote?
This is probably the most important question that we’re going to be addressing in this series, and honestly, the answer is not as complicated as you might think.
It’s pretty simple actually… you should vote because you live here.
Democracy only works because our representatives make change according to our agenda—us, as young people, possess more power than we think when it comes to changing things in our society that we are passionate about.
Really, the government is our employee. People in power can create legislation according to our advocacy. Voting is essentially the hiring process of our democracy.
Maybe you think that your individual vote doesn’t count. Or that what you think doesn’t ultimately make a difference in the greater agenda of our country, let alone our city. However, we would like to challenge that thought by saying that by that logic, if all of us considered our vote to be insignificant, the concept of democracy as a whole would fall apart and the way many countries on this planet function would be altered for the worse.
Because of this, we need to become active in government and advocacy. Even if you’re not sure that you are ready to speak up directly about something yet, voting is the best way to make yourself heard without committing yourself to extensive political action.
Ultimately, voting is our biggest responsibility, and the easiest one to fulfill. So maybe the real question is, why shouldn’t you vote?
“It is inconceivable that a sovereign people should continue, as we do so abjectly, to say, “I can’t do anything about it. It’s the government.” The government is the creation of the people. It is responsible to the people. And the people are responsible for it.”
James Baldwin