November 5, 2024 is election day. The Griffin staff will – and encourages all of its readers to – cast their votes, regardless of their political affiliations. For most undergraduate Canisius students, this is the first presidential election we are able to vote in. Generation Z must live up to its expectation of being an active, outspoken group of young people, who are invested in the future of our country. It is no secret that older generations are the most dedicated voters and as such, their interests are protected by politicians who wish to secure their vote. A high voter turnout from young people this November will leave politicians no choice but to hear our voices for the future.
United Student Association Senator Marja’e Johnson hosted an event on Oct. 30 called “Why Does My Vote Matter” with guest speaker Dr. Kevin Hardwick, professor of political science and the Erie County Comptroller. Dr. Hardwick candidly told New York voters that their vote in the presidential election has little impact on the results of the race. He said this was due to the nature of the electoral college, as well as the high probability that New York will be blue for Democratic candidate Kamala Harris because of places like New York City, Buffalo and Syracuse.
Instead of emphasizing the presidential election (except for students from swing states like Pennsylvania), Dr. Hardwick emphasized local politics. As a local politician himself, his argument was powerful and convincing as he described that local elections are closer, meaning one’s individual vote has a greater probability of impacting the outcome than in a presidential election. Dr. Hardwick lamented the phenomenon of people not voting for every position on the ballot, citing that some Buffalonian voters only wrote-in Byron Brown in 2021, without acknowledging any of the other races. Don’t do that. Officials like Town Supervisors, who you have only briefly seen in driveways, are the people responsible for making sure your garbage is picked up and the roads are iced and plowed before your morning commute to Canisius and beyond — local politics matter, and affect your day-to-day more than the federal government (which is intentional because of our federalist system of governance that shares power between federal, state and local governments).
Johnson closed out her event by encouraging her audience to think about voter suppression. Voter suppression has not been eradicated; its tactics disproportionately impact black and other minority voters, both today and in yesteryears. Though the most overt barriers to voting — intimidation, grandfather clauses, poll taxes, etc. — no longer exist, covert tactics remain.
In 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned a provision of the monumental Voting Rights Act of 1965 that required “preclearance” of changes to election laws in states with a history of voter discrimination in Shelby County v. Holder. The implication was that states were free to introduce stringent voter registration requirements, which became most frequently employed by Republican state legislatures to prevent minority groups from voting. For example, Voter ID laws — though purported to mitigate electoral fraud — are actually an attempt to suppress demographics that mainly vote for Democratic candidates, specifically those with low incomes who cannot afford an updated ID. Voter ID laws are just one example of voter suppression, the ACLU also cites Georgia’s “arbitrary” laws that prohibit election workers from offering food or drinks to voters in lines, which are especially long in Georgia (yet another attempt at voter suppression by decreasing the number of polling places).
Johnson’s imploration to fight against voter suppression fits perfectly with Dr. Hardwick’s message on the importance of local elections because the federal government has less power than one may presume regarding elections. The U.S.’s federal system of governance delegates election logistics to state legislatures, which is why not every state has Voter ID laws. Your vote determines the state legislature that is in charge of election procedures; your vote directly affects how the election in your state will proceed.
Despite what Dr. Hardwick and any other politically savvy people you may speak to will say about your presidential vote being less impactful in New York, your vote matters symbolically. Though her speech has been the subject of memes, Harris’s famous “coconut tree” oratory, is right! We live in the context of all in which we live and what came before us. For women, our trip to the polls is part of a tradition of women’s suffragists who fought for the Nineteenth Amendment, possibly electing our first-ever female president. For people of color, voting actualizes the efforts of martyrs like Reverend George W. Lee, who were murdered in cold blood for their voting rights advocacy.
Do not let your future children wonder about the state of our country and ask why you didn’t just go to the polls on a Tuesday afternoon. With the ease of early voting, there is no excuse to not find time to make it to the polling place or fill out an absentee ballot. It is our civic duty that we owe to not only — as Harris states — the people who came before us, but those who will come after us.
-CL
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