The Privilege of Voting

One of the greatest privileges we have in the United States of America is our right to vote at the federal, state, and local levels.

As the late former President Lyndon B. Johnson once said, “The right to vote is the basic right without which all others are meaningless. It gives people, people as individuals, control over their own destinies.” And, in the words of the late former President Franklin D. Roosevelt, “Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves, and the only way they could do this is by not voting.”

There is some good news on voter turnout: the 2020 presidential election had the highest turnout (around 66%) since 1900! And with the numbers coming in from early voting, the 2024 voter turnout is looking just promising. It is showing that, by and large, the American people treasure the right to vote.

When I moved to the US from my native Switzerland some three decades ago, I was surprised to find that the US has a strong tradition of direct democracy. Not only can you vote for political candidates, but there are also direct ballot measures, similar to those in Switzerland. Although in the US, placing a constitutional amendment on the ballot requires collecting signatures equal to 8% of the last presidential election’s voter turnout—currently about 900,000 signatures in Florida. In Switzerland, you can get anything on a federal level on the ballot by collecting 100,000 signatures, or trigger a nationwide referendum to reverse a decision made by the national parliament with just 50,000 signatures. This is why, in Switzerland, there’s almost always some vote or election to participate in.

And while presidential elections in the US are on everyone’s mind (and around the globe, in fact), let’s not forget that there are numerous state and local positions, along with amendments, to be voted on. Washington is important, but what happens right in our own backyard is just as crucial—if not more so.

So, I encourage you, no matter how you vote, PLEASE VOTE and exercise your most basic right.