Hello! Welcome to MI Vote Counts, a resource for new (and non-) voters: one-stop shopping for all the info you need on how (and where) you can get registered and vote.
So there you are, in the polling booth-- maybe for the very first time-- and you're not familiar with anything. What is this weird over-sized envelope?! And who are these people whose names are on the piece of paper inside... I know a few of them, but jeeze?! Libertarians? Tea Party? And what the fuck is the U.S. Taxpayers party?! This don't look like no party to me.
Relax. You've come to the right place. Yeah, voting is a weird and awkwardly formal process for anyone. Hopefully, together, we can make it something we can do together. Let's put the "party" back in "Party System" and, like P. Diddy and so many before him said, ROCK the vote.
But why? Who's going to listen to you anyway? After all, you're just a kid. Maybe an overgrown, taxpaying, and angsty kid, but hey-- what better reasons than those does anyone have to vote? So, think about it. Wherever they may lie on the Right/ Left continuum, you really DO have a set of beliefs and principles: politics. And democracy was designed so that each person-- and his or her beliefs and principles-- were represented throughout the state as a whole.
But the one resounding answer I hear when I ask my friends and peers if they're voting is this: I'm not registered. And so fourth begins a series of mostly- true statements on how their votes "don't count." What about the Electoral College? They make the decisions... so why should I bother? So what are we going to do? Keep watching the news, paralyzed with fear and frustration when the "movers and shakers" are out there moving and shaking the world? Or are we going to do some moving and shaking? It's up to you.
"We have the choice to use the gift of our life to make the world a better place--or not to bother"
--Jane Goodall
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