{"id":1187,"date":"2014-11-03T16:48:56","date_gmt":"2014-11-03T16:48:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/improvingourworld.winonastateu.com\/?p=1187"},"modified":"2022-04-05T19:28:48","modified_gmt":"2022-04-05T19:28:48","slug":"i-want-you-to-vote","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/improving-our-world\/2014\/11\/03\/i-want-you-to-vote\/","title":{"rendered":"I Want You to Vote!"},"content":{"rendered":"
\""Don't<\/a>

Seriously. You have to take action to make the world a better place.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cDo you know about this year\u2019s midterm election?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cWould you like to register to vote?\u201d \u201cHave you considered who you\u2019re voting for this year?\u201d<\/p>\n

These are just a few questions from my door-knocking script. That\u2019s right. I\u2019m one of those<\/em> people, knocking on your dorm room door when you\u2019re just trying to enjoy leftover pizza and watch Grey\u2019s Anatomy.<\/em><\/p>\n

I apologize for my intrusion, but despite having loud mouths and big opinions on hot topic issues like abortion, gay marriage and student loans the so-called “youth vote” is weaker than ever. Less than 50% of eligible youth voters actually show up to vote. It\u2019s up to volunteers like myself to get students hyped about this year\u2019s upcoming election.<\/p>\n

Volunteering for Winona\u2019s Democratic-Farmers-Labor (DFL) party was one of the best decisions I\u2019ve made since I started school at WSU this past August. Through the volunteer program I\u2019ve met a lot of likeminded people that share the same views I do and made some really great friends. Activities the volunteer program offer consist of going door to door asking people to register and helping them find their polling place, calling people to remind them of the upcoming election day, handing out flyers to students on campus, and helping set up for big events like the “Get out and Vote” bus tour. I was even given the opportunity to meet a few of the politicians running this year like Steve Simon and Gene Pelowski.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re not from Minnesota or don\u2019t know much about Minnesota politics, volunteering is a great way to find out more about the different politicians and policies. In fact, even if you\u2019re from out of state you are still eligible to vote in Minnesota\u2019s midterm and presidential election. I came to Winona from a small town in Illinois, but after just two months of volunteering I like to think I\u2019m pretty savvy with MnSCU jargon and politicians running in this year\u2019s election.<\/p>\n

One of the biggest things I\u2019ve learned over the course of volunteering is the importance of a vote. While in presidential elect years nearly everyone turns out to vote, midterms are often overlooked. But think about it for minute–how can the president you helped put in office do anything without a cooperative congress? It\u2019s easy to vote for the president. There are endless ads and almost every history class you take will be talking about it at the time of the election. Midterm elections are just as important as presidential elections, but are not taken as seriously by voters. This needs to change.<\/p>\n

Regardless of party lines, everyone should get educated and vote. As a citizen it\u2019s your right to vote and it\u2019s a right we\u2019re very lucky to have. If you don\u2019t like the way your student loans work, if you want more or less government involvement at a state level, if you think there should be more emphasis on equality rights, I\u2019ve got great news! You get in a say in it this Tuesday. It doesn\u2019t matter if you didn\u2019t register. If you show up to your polling place<\/a> (PDF) with a valid ID, you can vote.<\/p>\n

Please, take the time out of your Tuesday this week to vote. No party has this election \u2018in the bag\u2019 there\u2019s no sure fire winner. Everything is close and everything is up in the air. Your voice matters and here is your chance to have it heard.<\/p>\n

Hope to see you at the polls on Tuesday!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cDo you know about this year\u2019s midterm election?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cWould you like to register to vote?\u201d \u201cHave you considered who you\u2019re voting for this year?\u201d These are just a few questions from my door-knocking script. That\u2019s right. I\u2019m one of those people, knocking on your dorm room door when you\u2019re just trying to enjoy leftover pizza […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[427,428,429,430],"class_list":["post-1187","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-improving-our-world","tag-dfl-party","tag-elections","tag-hannah-carmack","tag-voting"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p7OGye-j9","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/improving-our-world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1187","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/improving-our-world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/improving-our-world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/improving-our-world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/improving-our-world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1187"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/improving-our-world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2802,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/improving-our-world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1187\/revisions\/2802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/improving-our-world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/improving-our-world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.winona.edu\/improving-our-world\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}