COLUMN: My vote didn't count
I've made it a point to vote in every election since I turned 18 years old 2006.
My first vote wasn't even for the big game – the general presidential election – it was in the midterms. Hell, I voted during the primaries for local officials. Voting is the most fundamental right I have as an American citizen.
Imagine my dismay when I found out on Nov. 4 that despite registering at MAINstage, I was not allowed to vote in Union Township on a technicality. Part of it was my fault; the other half of the blame, I feel, rests with the canvassers.
What ensued was a set of Election Day follies I had not accounted for. My guess is that other students experienced the same set of troubles.
As I walked into the Jameson Hall polling location, as advised by the voter registration slip I received in the mail about a month ago, I was told that I was not registered to vote at that location. I wasn't registered to vote at all. They looked me up. Swiped my license twice. I was like a ghost.
Even the township clerk, who they had phoned for assistance, was confounded. There was no record of me or my residence in Jamestown Apartments. Due to the impermanence of college, I never thought it necessary to change the address on my license.
Had I brought my slip to the location with me, it might have been resolved. But how does that account for not even being in their system? Really? Not even one ounce of evidence that I was registered?
During the summer months, canvassers flooded the streets of Mount Pleasant and its surrounding townships to try and register students. The hope for these canvassers was to get a powerful constituency to the polls – students. I respect what canvassers do in terms of strengthening our democracy, but let's face it: If it ain't broke, don't fix it.
I was perfectly content with filling out an absentee ballot and sending it to my hometown in Canton, Mich. I was even more content with driving home and placing the vote in person. Yet the canvasser – a professor at Central Michigan University no less – was pushy and persuasive.
I felt pressured to be registered in the first place. I took time out of my MAINstage festivities to fill out an application all in the pursuit of taking part in local elections. Yet this was a minor inconvenience compared to not being able to lift my voice and help shape Michigan's future.
With so many first-time voters registered by canvassers at MAINstage, new freshmen or interested upperclassmen, I worried that other students faced the same problems. Our generation has become so disillusioned by politics to begin with. We don't trust politicians and we don't trust institutions.
Being turned away from a polling location could very well be the last straw for some of these students, and that to me is more detrimental to the sanctity of our democratic process than the actions of a dirt-bag politician.
If this happened to you on Election Day, I implore you to share your story with Central Michigan Life and to call your city in droves and demand an explanation.
There's nothing worse than feeling like your voice doesn't matter – that is, of course, if you are actually told that your voice doesn't matter because you're not allowed to vote.
