Get Out the Vote

Half of the American people have never read a newspaper. Half never voted for President. One hopes it is the same half. - Gore Vidal

The hallowed halls of the Virginia General Assembly never heard such a speech as the one Mary Johnston gave before the learned politicos on January 19, 1912.
An advocate for a woman’s right to vote, Johnston, an area native and by then a much-accomplished and well-respected author, told the legislatures that she paid $1,000 annually in taxes to the state, yet had no voice in how the revenue was spent.

Her family settled western Virginia and had fought in all of the country’s wars up to that time. Yet recent legal immigrants, who knew nothing of democracy, she said, were treated as if they knew better than she what the interests of the state might be.

“We are asking that those who live under the laws of a state … may have something to do with the making of those laws,” Johnston said in another speech, this time before a meeting of governors. “We are asking that we who pay a very considerable portion of the taxes of the State and of the country may have a voice in the apportionment of those taxes. We are asking that we who work may have a say as to the conditions under which we work.”

For six years, Johnston gave up much of her life so that women could obtain the right to vote. She suffered from vicious personal attacks from anti-suffrage groups. She did not give up.

How sad then that today, the local voter registrar expects less than half the entire population of the county to turn out when the polls open on November.

Less than 100 years after Mary Johnston took a stand and fought for the right to vote, have we thrown it away? If just half the population votes, and half of those are female, then only 25 percent of the women in this area will bother to exercise a right for which some women were imprisoned.

Not long ago, I heard someone on a late night radio talk advocate a change in the voting laws so that only landowners could vote.

I have heard other people advocate taking the vote from women and from minorities. No doubt about it, at this very moment, there are folks working to undermine a linchpin of democracy that 50 percent of you, male and female, black or white, apparently take for granted.

If you don’t vote, they could very well be successful, because you can be sure they will vote for candidates who think similarly.

Voting is your right. It is also your duty as a citizen to take this single action every year to ensure that the county or the country is overseen by the best person.

So make plans now to go vote. Tell your boss you may be a little late the morning of November 6.

It’s that important.