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Get on the box and VOTE! Photo by Steve Rhodes
This is the first year of my life I have been eligible to vote in a national presidential election. If you’re under 21, odds are your situation is similar. I’m not trying to pull the MAKES AMERICA GREAT soapboxery — hundreds of millions of people all over this planet have the right to vote. But it is still a right, and more people our age should take advantage of it. I only recently registered, missing out on a few years worth of local and congressional elections. I don’t really have an excuse. It was plenty important, but my flawed rationalizations led me to think that there were better things I could be doing with my time.
Regret sucks! Whoever you end up voting for will be helping to shape legislation that will directly effect your life once you get out of college. That’s some important shit right there. And if that isn’t reason enough, even if your candidate doesn’t win and the country goes to hell, you can declare “Well I voted for [blank]!” and sport the newest NOT MY PRESIDENT t-shirt.
Registering is easy. For all of its MTV IN YO FACE qualities, Rock the Vote reduces the whole issue of voting to a simple printable form. Just click here to go to the registration site. Grind through the form, and hit print at the bottom. Then all you have to do is stick a stamp to it and drop it in the mail. Physical mail is a pretty foreign concept to me too, but hey, what are you going to do? The actual national voter form is this big confusing document with specific directions for each state that is rivaled in complication only by that IKEA desk you built once. This site, specific to Massachusetts, has some information specific to voting in this state.
Are you registered? When did you register? Excited to vote? Comment and let us know! The comment field here has the potential to become a political quagmire! Fight fight!
One more thing. If you hail from a swing state, I’d recommend registering to your home address. Just be sure your parents are on the lookout for envelopes from the government with your name on them. Once they get it, you can request an absentee ballot online to be sent to your residence in Boston.