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Rapidcopy ualbany3/14/2023 ![]() ![]() We, those who are well past the age of 18, cannot be silent and continue contributing to the tradition of people shying away from politics and not voting, especially in a year where it’s crucial nationally. The thing is, if I, a teenager, have had that mentality, I’m sure thousands, if not millions of other teenagers, including those in middle school, high school, college, recent college graduates, and years out of all schooling, have that mentality even to this very word they’re reading. Like, “Crap, I've been shying away from local races which have a much greater impact on me on a day-to-day basis then the national race.” Once my siblings broke it down like that, it hit me. Once the time comes for national elections, then feel a sense of pride when you vote in the national election every four years. I should think about it as a bottoms-up approach: Initially focus on voting within town, county and state limits, including district budget votes for which I have stakes in, assembly(wo)man, attorney general, senators, sheriff, and town mayor/supervisor because local elections happen more often than national elections do. I don’t remember exactly who said what, but I do know that the premise was that I should be thinking about politics the other way around. My siblings broke it down well enough for me to wake up and stop shying away from politics, a topic I shied away from all too often until 2019. The adage I used to try and excuse myself when family members asked me if I voted in that year’s election was, “New York is democrat majority so it’s not like my vote will sway the national election so what’s the point of voting?” Well, the poor excuse came to backfire on me as family members, who were able to exercise their right to vote and weren’t legally allowed to vote just yet, but followed politics close enough, confronted me for using that reasoning. ![]() When I turned 18 in 2016, I didn’t think of it beyond the average birthday when in fact, I should have because 2016 saw one of the most controversial political races unfold. Why? Reasons include, but are not limited to, lack of repetition of the concept, visual understanding of the concept (playing it out in a hypothetical scenario during class), or simply because most students in secondary schools have not reached the age for it to apply to them to care enough because you can only vote when you’re 18 or older and only if you’re a United States citizen. Of course, many people prefer not to retain various lessons in multiple subject areas because it comes down to matter of interest, but I assure you, there is a greater chance that a student, who struggles in arithmetic, remembers the formula for Pythagorean Theorem better than what the timeframes for voting locally are and importance of voting locally means. Is this on the teenager not knowing the time frame for not knowing when their municipal elections take place? Somewhat, but this ties into what we teach students from the get-go. However, ask the average teenager in New York what dates matter in terms of voting locally and they would probably only be able to give you a timeframe of when their (alma mater) school district’s budget vote is, but everyone knows that one - it’s middle-to-late May. In the last four years, Novemhas become a date thousands of more people across the country have highlighted on their calendar due to proudly reaching the age to vote, solely earning and looking forward to exercising the legal right to vote, and/or hoping the electoral college yields a change in our country’s President. ![]()
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