VOTE! The American Thing To Do!

Election Day is May 4 and the polls are open from 6 a.m.-6 p.m.

Every Election Day, I am saddened by the percentage of people who do not participate in the voting. In a major election year, almost 75 percent of the qualified voters generally choose not to participate. In a minor election, when there isn't a Presidential election, the percentage is even more dismal.

It escapes me, the fact that many polls can show that the public is dissatisfied with things that go on within the various levels of our government but when the opportunity to voice their opinion and desires at the ballot box comes about so many voters decline to avail themselves of it by not participating in the decisions that will affect their lives.

Our forefathers went to great lengths to insure that we had the right to vote. Some of our families had ancestors who stood on the battlefields of the American Revolution to fight for the right to have representation in their government. Ever since that war, many people have given up the life that they had in the country they were born into to come to the United States so that they and their descendants would have that right, often in peril of their own lives just to step upon these shores. Many of us can trace our lineage and discover relatives who fought for the Union in the Civil War to ensure that all men had the right to vote, who fought for the right of women to vote during the Women's Suffrage Movement, or who participated in the Civil Rights Movement to reaffirm, once again, that all men and women should have the same rights and truly be treated equally under the laws of this nation. When I think of what those men and women went through to assure that you have the right to vote and the many voters who choose not to, I wonder if the voter is not telling those who fought so hard, sometimes to the death, that voting just isn't worth the time and trouble.

To those who vote, I applaud you. To those that don't, I ask that you reconsider. Of all the things that you can possibly do, casting your ballot is almost the most American thing that you could possibly do.

Make the time on May 4 to VOTE!

Leo L. Southworth may be contacted at leosouthworth@gmail.com.