My Experience As A First Time Voter

Written on October 27th, 2020

It all begins with an idea. Over the summer, I became an adult.

Having gained this honor, I couldn't stop thinking about all of the rights I have now that I am officially 18 years old. For example, now I can order things off of the informercials I watched as a kid such as Pillow Pets, Kinetic Sand, Easy Bake Ovens and Happy Nappers! Along with that, I get to receive more mail that is personally addressed to me which is my favorite thing right now (until bills come into the picture). One of the most exciting things I can do now is travel by myself, which evidently will be when I go off to college.

But the most important thing I can finally do now is vote. And I'm proud to say that I had the opportunity to vote in the most important election of our time. That to me, is being a true American.

America is currently at an incredibly divisive point in history. It is democrat or republican, black lives matter or blue lives matter, pro-life or pro-choice, Biden-Harris 2020 or Trump-Pence 2020. Our country is full of so much hate to the point where we are literally at odds with the other side. But one thing that is bringing us all together is our patriotic right to vote. At least we can all agree that the most important thing we can do for our country in this moment is voting, regardless of what candidate that we are voting for.

For all my future voters out there, I'll explain to ya'll the process of voting from registering to dropping the ballot in the ballot box.

So luckily right before the pandemic hit, my school was fortunate enough to host a few qualified election officials who helped high school students register to vote. Since I was 17, I was eligible to register along with my friends and it was a fun experience for all of us. All we had to do was fill out a registration form with all of our personal information and once we were done, they sent it out to the election's office and then we automatically qualify for receiving a ballot in the mail for the next election (as long as we were 18 or older prior to Election Day). The process was super easy and the best part was that we got "I registered to vote" stickers after which was pretty cool.

So a few months after registering I finally got my first ballot in the mail which was for the State election part 1. There was a voters pamphlet that gave profiles of each of the candidates. Basically, the candidates for state positions consisted of people from all sides of the spectrum when it comes to experience and sanity. Our job was to vote for who we thought was most fit for the state position. Let me tell y'all, there were some weird names and categories that some candidates were associated with. Topics include Socialist Party, Green Party, Republican Pre-Donald Trump Party, Federalist Party and my favorite wacko candidate was Good Space Guy (lol). It was good to have a laugh at what these wackos pictured society to be in their mind, as we proceeded to vote for the most sane and experienced candidate that we thought would not bring our state to shambles.

Once we sent our ballots out, the election officials make their cuts on all of the wackos and trimmed the list down to two possible candidates usually democrat or republican and added them to the next ballot.

Ballot number two arrived a few weeks prior to Election Day, around the beginning of October. This was the most important ballot because it consisted of state laws, state candidates (the trimmed down version) and what we've all been waiting for... our national presidential candidates (woo hoo).

This process took a bit more time since there were multiple categories to go through. My parents and I started with new state laws. What we did was we read the description, openly discussed our thoughts on whether we should veto or approve of the law, and finally come to a group decision before filling in the circle. The process was somewhat similar for the final list of state position candidates, we discussed as a group who we thought has the most experience and felt most qualified and came to a decision together on a single candidate.

Then came the moment I've been waiting for my entire life, filling in the bubble for the presidential candidate. Now I've had my fair share of voting in a school setting for school elections but this... this made me feel like I could change the world. Think about it, the American people (its actually trickier then that but this is the big picture) get to decide who is going to run our country for the next four years which influences policies, law making and so many other things that shape our country.

How I prepared? Simple, I educated myself on both of the candidate through reliable news sources on various platforms and decided where I stood after learning what each candidate believes in but also... what this candidate is like as a genuine person.

It's not just voting for a presidential candidate... its voting for the sake of women's rights, foreign people's rights, poor and rich people's rights, LGBTQ+ people's rights, black people's rights, and well everyone who lives in this country, its about their rights. It's voting for the future of healthcare, education, jobs, the economy and so many other factors.

Voting is showing America that the people have a say in what they want their country to look like in the future.

After celebrating having finished voting with my parents for the first time, we put our ballot in a security envelope and then put that envelope into another envelope, signed it and just like that we were done.

But wait, there's more!

Ballots could either be sent back to the election's office by mail or you could put your ballot in a drop-box in a secure location. If you read my "Trump Vs. The Post Office" post back in August, you would know that I believe that voting by mail is not the most reassured way to make sure that your vote gets counted this election. Therefore, I decided to put my families ballots in a drop-box located at our local library! Drop-boxes are usually located at most public libraries and city buildings fyi :)

So I strutted up to the ballot box, placed my family's ballots inside, watched them drop, and let our a sigh of relief. A few days ago my mother notified me that our ballots were brought back safely and officially counted. I was so happy! I did it!

This process is so incredibly important right now in these trying time, it gives us something to hold on to.

Imagine living in a world where your vote helps shape our country. It's such a powerful thing to think about.

So now we wait. Anything can happen, that is the scary part of it all. But we just need to get through the next couple of days and finally, a time will come when the ultimate fit, qualified candidate is chosen.

Brace yourselves for Election Day.