Tell my why you aren't voting?
By whywiki
@whywiki (6066)
Canada
October 10, 2008 11:16am CST
Each election comes and goes and all eligible voters don't vote. I must wonder why? Voting was a hard earned right of women the world over. When I hear a woman say she doesn't vote it makes my blood boil. Don't they realize what women went through just for the right? I know women sacrificed for my right to stand there and have my say. So I have been reading up on some American women that were heroes in my mind. I don't know who wrote the following article but it pretty much sums it up.
Remember how women got the vote
The women were innocent and defenseless. And by the end of the night, they were barely alive. Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 helpless women wrongly convicted of "obstructing sidewalk traffic."
They beat Lucy Burn, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air. They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.
Thus unfolded the "Night of Terror" on Nov. 15, 1917, when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote.
For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms. When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press.
So, refresh my memory. Some women won't vote this year because--why, exactly? We have carpool duties? We have to get to work? Our vote doesn't matter? It's raining?
2 people like this
4 responses
@chrislotz (8137)
• Canada
11 Oct 08
I am 51 years old and have been voting since I was 18 years old, so it has been a lot of years. I live in Canada but that makes no difference as we are having our elections now too, as well as in the States.
This year I am not voting. I don't like any of the parties so I don't want to swing the vote one way or the other or the other or the other. We have 4 parties running and I hate all of them. I will not be happy with who ever gets elected so I don't want to be a part of it. I think they should have a box that can be ticked off that says none of the above. That way they would know how many people feel the same as I do, that they are all crooks and that the people don't like any of them. I would then vote this year and I think so would a lot more people. I think that is the reason people don't vote much anymore, because they don't like any of the parties.
@chrislotz (8137)
• Canada
11 Oct 08
Wow, I would never have known. I am leader of a provincial party whose aim is to bring democracy to BC. Good for you. I live in Alberta now but I just moved here from Winnipeg and don't know the provincial politicains too well. I am talking about the federal elections. I am sorry to say that I don;t trust any of them and so it wouldn't be fair for me to vote when I really don't have a favourite to vote for. Sorry.
@onesiobhan (1327)
• Canada
12 Oct 08
I don't get it either. I wasn't born in this country but I got my citizenship so that I could vote.
To be honest though, if somebody cares so little about the political process it's probably just as well that they don't vote. They probably haven't done any research or reading on the issues so they'll just guess. And the outcome is too important to resolve the election that way.
@whywiki (6066)
• Canada
13 Oct 08
It is true some people don't feel it is that important but it really is. Sometimes I think people who have emigrated understand the importance of the vote more that people that just take it for granted. I think of countries where "the leader" is the leader and you have no choice. So even though sometimes I don't feel like going to the polls I always do. It is a right the women that went before me fought for and I will honor those women when I go to the polls tomorrow and make the best decision I can and vote for the party I feel best represents me and my family.
@flowerchilde (12529)
• United States
22 Oct 08
...sometimes I wish those who aren't very informed about politics wouldn't vote! Yes, I confess to that.. cause then I imagine many are voting according to public sentiment which is often shaped by misleading proaganda and unfortunately the media, which definitely is agenda driven, especially over the past 8 years (in the usa that is). Seems like the only issue in the media these days is the next election(s) and this agenda forms many people's opinions and views.
@danishcanadian (28953)
• Canada
10 Oct 08
Both my husband and I are going to vote. He's American, I'm Canadian, and we are both totally politically alligned. We totally agree on politics, and share our votes, since we only have one in each election. He and I both decide to gether who we are pulling for in the American ones, and in the Canadian onces, thus having a say in both elections.
