WASHINGTON — For months now, advocates from all parts of our culture -- politicians, scholars, the clergy, athletes, entertainers, me, and everyone involved here at Get UP DC -- have been encouraging our fellow citizens to vote and to exercise this most basic and fundamental right.
It’s with a great deal of pride that I can say Tuesday morning, that you have done just that. In early voting alone, the US Election Project reports that 99,657,079 of us have cast a vote.
This includes mail-in ballots and of course those of you who stood, or sat, in line. That’s 72.3% of the total votes cast in 2016. These numbers are unprecedented. It’s amazing. You’re amazing.
You didn’t let a pandemic stop you. You masked up and did what you had to do. You didn’t buy into the falsehoods being told about mailing in your ballot. You were strategic with it, taking it in yourself if necessary. Some of you volunteered your time -- a first. You committed to helping your neighbors through the process, either by phone or in person. You supported your fellow citizens in parts of the country whose votes are being disenfranchised, standing with them in spirit, letting them know that they’re not alone.
Over the course of history, we have shown as a nation that we don’t place a high level of importance on voting. While claiming to be the greatest democracy on Earth, we often leave out a key element: the active participation of the people in it. Oftentimes we act as though civic engagement is some heavy burden. But there have always been those among us who have seen it for it is: A duty to ourselves and each other. They’ve been telling us, and we’ve finally started to listen.
There is a fear that this election won’t be decided as quickly as those in the past have been. To this I say, good. That means that the people showed up, so count the ballots, we can wait.
Those of you going out to vote on Election Day, I haven’t forgotten about you either. Mask up. Dress warm. Make sure your phone is charged. Take a chair if you need it, and a book. You guys make me proud, too.
No matter the outcome, we need to carry this energy forward. We’ve shown what we can do, set a bar for ourselves. Engagement like this, on every level, is what will move us toward becoming the nation we say we want to be.