I recently watched a 60 Minutes episode where the interviewer sat down and talked with Ohioans about who they will be voting for.
Ohio is an important swing state and the only time we ever matter is election season. The last time a presidential candidate won the White House without winning Ohio was John F. Kennedy. In fact, the entire election could come down to Ohio. Obviously, voting in Ohio is quite the big deal.
There seems to be this stigma around, however, that voters can only vote for two people, a Democrat or a Republican. In the 60 Minutes interview, the only people they talked about was Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump. People will want to tell voters that casting a ballot for a third party candidate is just like giving it to the other side.
I want to say something against that and I hope you hear it loud and clear.
You, as an American citizen who lives in a democracy, can vote for whoever you want. You can even not vote if you want to. If you think Hillary Clinton should be the next president, vote for her. If you think Donald Trump is a better fit, vote for him. Or, if you so choose to do so, you can vote for Jill Stein, Gary Johnson or even Evan McMullan, who is making a big splash in Utah in his bid for presidency.
If you choose to make a write-in candidate, you should be aware that only candidates who have filed to be a write-in candidate will be counted, so for those of you who wanted to vote for the Cookie Monster, that vote will not be counted.
When you walk out of the voting booth, you should feel confident in who you voted for. Voting is actually a pretty big deal and you should be okay with who you vote for.
If you as a voter are not morally okay with voting for a candidate, then vote for someone that you will be okay with. Voters don’t need to compromise what they believe in and what they are okay with just because they think they don’t have any other choice.
There are some people who just don’t want to vote this year. That’s okay too. It isn’t anywhere in any law that you have to vote if you are a citizen of the United States. Voters have the freedom to vote or not to vote. However, if you so choose not to vote, please keep your opinion off any and all social media. If you don’t vote, then you get what you get and you don’t throw a fit.
Voting is perfectly reflective of the society we live in. We are all striving to be with everyone else that we conform to the ideals of modern society. We become what other people think we should be because we try so hard to please.
In voting, you may have the tendency to vote where your friends are voting or you are afraid that people will think differently of you if you vote a different way. Voters cast their ballot where they think other people want them to cast their ballot.
Voting is something personal. It is not something coworkers, friends or family need to know about. It is a right that you get to express in our country and what everyone else thinks about how you choose to express that right doesn’t matter. So please, keep your votes off of social media because no one needs to know how you voted or why you think you are superior than others who voted differently.
It is important understand that people have the liberty to think differently than you do and they also have the liberty to vote differently. All these debates on social media are ridiculous. All that accomplishes is making you look like the angry person who is way into politics and needs to take a couple of chill pills.
It may not seem very patriotic to tell someone that they don’t have to vote if they don’t want to. It’s a good thing I don’t consider myself very patriotic. However, voting is a right that has gotten tangled up in politics and societal pressure. Voting should be one of the greatest expressions of liberty. So, don’t let anyone fool you. You have the right to vote however you want to vote. As long as you walk out of that voting booth and feel like you’ve made the best decision for you as a citizen, then you’ve made right choice.
Laina Yost
Managing Editor