Tuesday November 8 Election Day

Voting – a right, an obligation, a puzzle, or a waste.

Sometimes, it’s hard to see the importance of voting.  But it is one of the best ways Americans have to let their opinions be heard by those in power. Your candidate might not win, but you voice is heard. Your vote counts because it reflects how you feel about the  issues that every citizen faces.

Many may take their right to vote for granted, but it wasn’t truly that long ago when entire swaths of the population ― like women ― were denied that right. Women gained suffrage in 1919, meaning the grandmothers of many not-voting millennials were alive during a time when they were prohibited from casting a ballot.

Since the era of women’s suffrage, African-Americans, Asians, Latinos and Native Americans have all faced obstacles to voting at various times (and plenty of the issues are still ongoing). Accessibility issues continue to disenfranchise citizens with disabilities of every age and race.

The relative ease of voting for many citizens makes it easy to forget the difficulty and outright danger of voting in other countries. While U.S. voters may be deterred by a long line at the polls, voters in countries like Afghanistan contend with terrorist violence. And despite threats from the Taliban, Afghan women in 2014 turned out in record numbers ― often risking their own lives ― to cast a vote in local council and presidential elections.