Your Vote: Democracy’s Greatest Weapon
By John David Powell (10/19/03)
(From remarks delivered at the beginning of Houston's mayoral debate held at the University of Houston, Oct. 15, 2003.)
When I was asked to bring a welcome and say a few words about the importance of voting, I made a promise to myself to avoid using the words “civic duty” and “voting” in the same sentence.
I just broke that promise.
Let me make it up by sharing some thoughts about this right to vote that go beyond civic duty and add to your knowledge of history. This is a university, after all.
Political campaigns, on the surface, appear divisive by pitting one group, or political party, or ideology against everyone else. Political debates and rhetoric can be loud and cantankerous and sometimes cause long-term damage.
But the reality is that the election process – the debates, the parades down Main Street, the grand speeches in great halls or on street corners – is proof that more things unify us than divide us.
Just be being here today you are united with the signers of the Declaration of Independence who voted with their signatures and their sacred honors to establish these United States of America.
You are united with everyone denied the right to vote because they did not own land, or because they were women, or servants, or non-white.
You are united with the women – and men – who formed the suffrage movement in 1848.
You are united with the first black men given the right to vote under the 15th Amendment in 1870.
You are united with those who speak Spanish, Chinese, Navajo, and Eskimo who receive bilingual ballots or oral assistance at the polls.
You are united with those who walked for miles with their family and neighbors to stand in good weather and bad and listen to the debates of Abraham Lincoln and Stephan A. Douglas.
You are united with the people of New Hampshire who open their homes every four years to their neighbors and to future presidents.
You are united with every person who has risked his safety or her life to flee tyranny and oppression for a chance to live with freedom and dignity.
You are united – indeed every one of us here this afternoon is united – in the rich and wonderful history of the democratic process of this nation.
Of all the rights you and I share as citizens of this country, the right to vote is arguably the greatest and most important. It is the tie that binds us to our past. It is too precious and has been acquired at too great a cost to give away.
Thank you for coming today. Continue participating in our political process. Hold these candidates and your elected officials to high levels of accountability. And never hesitate to use the greatest weapon in the defense of democracy – your vote.
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