Poll | 08/25/2009 11:00 pm

Has there ever been a presidential election wherein you didn't exercise your right to vote?

August 26th is Women’s Equality Day, the anniversary of the signing of the 19th Amendment, which granted women the right to vote. How often do you take advantage of this right?

Read more about: 19th Amendment, Constitution, Elections, Vote, women

77 Reader Comments (so far…) Sign In or Register to comment

In Carter’s last run for president, I got off work, picked up my kids and went to the voting booths. Pulled in and parked,they announced on the radio that the race had been won. I put the car in reverse and took my babies home.

By Linda Myers on 08/26/2009 12:23 am

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Linda - I remember that year…1980. Reagan’s election was not ordained. The media was astonished, as per Peggy Noonan’s revelations in her book re the Reagan Revolution. Peggy was working at that time in the newsroom at CBS and she wrote a candid account of how Rather and other CBS newspeople were reacting to the Reagan victory. As for me, I heard the announcement of the winning electoral count on my drive home from work …. but I parked my car at the voting station and went in to vote for Ronald Reagan with a wide grin and a lot of hope in my heart. Different perspective.

By Bonnie O on 08/26/2009 8:52 pm

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At my age now, I would have done differently. At 24 with three little ones in the back seat, and an outcome announced that was expected, I was more satisfied with an oh s@#t, and going home rather than contributing. I was young, and did not feel like the sky would fall either way. I don’t remember suffering from Reagan being elected, and Nancy I thought was a classy first lady.

By Linda Myers on 08/27/2009 12:32 am

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The 19th Amendment did not technically ‘grant’ women the right to vote. First of all, rights are not ‘granted’ they are ‘recognized’. Second, women had long voted in many States. How each State chose its representatives had been up to each State .. the Constitution did not guarantee the ‘right to vote’ by anyone. What the 19th Amendment did, technically speaking, was to REDUCE the rights of the individuals of each State to decide for themselves how they wanted to be represented. That said, yes, the effect was to guarantee the vote for women.

By Martha Evans on 08/26/2009 1:47 am

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Voting is a way of expressing an opinion for the candidates. Even if you know that your choice isn’t in the majority you are expressing support. It irritates me to hear people complaining that their candidate didn’t win when they never backed those running by taking the time to vote.

By Chris Glass` on 08/26/2009 4:41 am

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I hear ya Chris. My brother always has an opinion about the presidential election, but has never registered to vote. In my state up until a few years ago, when you registered to vote your name was put in a data base for jury duty. He never has registered, because he didn’t want to be called for jury duty. Now they use drivers licences. I have always given my brother a hard time because of this. He used the excuse he didn’t want to have to take off work for jury duty. (he is a work-a-holic)

By Eldebbo C on 08/26/2009 8:15 am

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my best friend who is extremely political says, "if you don’t vote you cannot have an opinion and you cannot cry about who got elected because you didn’t use your rights to make sure your party was elected!" so you can imagine anybody that is a non-voter by choice trying to have a convo around her. lol! (i feel the same also)

By Nancy Pea on 08/29/2009 6:19 pm

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Whether granted or recognized I have not missed voting in a major election in over 40 years. It is a privilege to vote in this country and very big responsibilty. And I feel a member of the citizenry that helps establish change in whatever election I vote in —-

By Bethany Christian on 08/26/2009 6:06 am

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Unfortunately my vote has been a negative vote in the last few elections, i.e. voting against rather than for someone. There are good, good people out there, people who would carve out wonderful, meaningful places in our history and yet, the media will not let them or their families alone. Is there any one of us who doesn’t who doesn’t have some skeleton buried in our family closet? The good people that abound do not want their families subjected to that kind of scrutiny and so we get what we get what we’ve had. If only we could take the politics out of politics.

By Andy C on 08/26/2009 6:47 am

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I’ve been guilty of this voting pattern too. Maybe its telling that on the occasions I’ve voted "against" someone, that someone won, much to my chagrin.

By Raugiel Reddel on 08/27/2009 6:54 pm

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we’ve been in a lose/lose situation for a long time

By Andy C on 08/27/2009 7:08 pm

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I have a nervous hope for the current term, but we’ll just have to wait and see I guess.

By Raugiel Reddel on 08/27/2009 7:11 pm

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I have never missed a presidential election, and with this last election, I can say I have had the opportunity to cast my vote with great enthusiasm and pride.

By DeBúrca obj on 08/26/2009 8:03 am