This year has flown by and it is already October. That means in less than a month America will be voting for our next President. When thinking of what to write about I received an email from voter.org. This site is a way to assist citizens on how to vote and updates regarding voting day. This made me begin to think about how crazy it is that everyone who votes in the U.S. manages to do it on the same day that is with the expectation of absentee ballots and a few other things. I began thinking about how lucky I am to be able to cast my vote and have it count. It has been over 50 years since voter laws have changed allowing people of color to vote. This is a great step in the right direction for America.
The next thing I began to think about is the people who are still left out on voting day. After doing a little research I discovered that only 20% of low income families in the United States vote. I always have seen voting to be fairly easy. You go to your local voting station, wait in line, cast your vote and get on with your day. This is not as easy for people with little money. They may struggle with transportation to the polls. One reason many low income families may not vote is because the date is always during the week on a work day. Many families cannot afford to take off of work to go to the polls. People with higher income jobs may not have as much of an issue leaving work for a couple of hours. Also, when voting you are required to show a form of I.D. For low income families some members of the family may not have an I.D. to provide. These also cost money to obtain and they are more than likely not going to get an I.D. just to cast their vote. Some families may not have access to a computer to get emails such as the one I received today. There are many other struggles that people from middle or higher class families may not realize.
Voting should be equally accessible to anyone in the U.S. who wants to cast their vote. It is unfair that money is able to cause a hindrance for the voting of our next President. Although this is not done on purpose it is still unfair and creates a gap in the social structure.
The unequal voting rights bring me back to the letters from the Birmingham Jail. Though the laws are in place stating that there is equal opportunity for all that is not true in many cases. Whether it be the fault of the law or the misinterpreted use of the law the issue still stands. One point that Martin Luther King Jr. makes during his letters is that “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere”. In the letters he also pointed out that other countries are moving forward very rapidly with political independence issues and America is almost at a stand still. This too can be compared to our efforts to make the voting opportunity equal in America amongst the different social classes. It is a structural issue that is seeing an extremely slow solution come to the surface.
But there is still a voting problem in the United States:Many people who live in poverty just aren’t going to the polls. (n.d.). Why poor people still aren’t voting. Retrieved October 22, 2020, from https://money.cnn.com/2015/08/05/news/economy/poor-people-voting-rights/index.html