Persuasive Speech Why People Should Vote

“Nobody will ever deprive the
American
people of the right to vote except the
American people themselves and the only way they could do this is by not voting.
”
Franklin Roosevelt.
The right to vote is fundamental to the democratic structure of the
United States of America and is the people’s conventional method of influencing government.
Democracy
’s literal translation is “rule by the people” and when the makers of the Constitution met to revise the Articles of the Confederation, concern for popular sovereignty shaped the emerging government’s policies. Unfortunately, the right to vote was not extended to all people. Brave men and women sacrificed much to secure their right to influence government through voting. Voting is a right that people have spent their lives fighting for, now there are many excuses that people make to why they choose not to vote, and people need to know and remember that voting is extremely important to our country and what it stands for.
Over the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries voting has changed a lot, and all for the better, making our nation a more equal and free nation
. It started after the Revolutionary
War, ever since independence from Britain was gained in 1776. Since the Articles of the
Confederation did not mention voting rights, they were left over to the state to create voting laws. Information from votinghistory.org says, it was this way until 1788 when the
Constitution replaced the Articles of Confederation. In 1789, only white males over the age of 21, who were taxpayers could vote. Non­white races could not vote.
Later, in 1870 post civil war the 15th amendment of the constitution tried to give African
American men the right to vote. This however, failed because of poll taxes and literacy tests, that went against the African Americans, because many did not have the money

to pay the poll taxes, and the African American’s had a high illiteracy rate at that time.
African Americans were also feared that they would be harmed if they tried to vote. th These poll taxes were banned by the 24 amendment of the Constitution, which was

passed in 1964. The literacy test was also taken away one year later in 1965, with the voting rights of 1965. But male African Americans and other minority groups were not the only people deprived of their basic right to vote. Women were also not granted suffrage. And only after many protests, debates and altercations were women given the th right to vote in 1920, by means of the 19 amendment. These two feats were big steps

in America for racial tolerance, and gender equality. The voting age was lowered in
1971 with the 26th amendment giving the right to all citizens 18 years of age and older to vote. The main reason why it was lowed is because the Vietnam War caused speculation on voting age when men could be drafted at 18 years of age, but not vote.
So voting is important because we should not abuse and take for granted what some people spent many years and even their lives trying to get for themselves.
There are dozens of excuses that people make to not vote. Brad Plumer, a writer for
WashingtonPost, says that the leading reason that people do not vote is that they do not think they’re vote matters, they don’t care about politics or don’t like either of the candidates. Another major reason people don’t vote is that they think that their one vote doesn’t make a difference. This is a common excuse that's rooted in the belief that the
Electoral College chooses the President, not the voters. In reality, the popular vote in each state determines which candidate the Electoral College endorses for that state.
Therefore, your vote does count within your state, and you should get out and exercise

your right to vote. ZenCollegeLife.com states that Americans are busy with work, family, and other life obligations that tend to get in the way of civic duties like voting. There's no doubt that voting presents scheduling challenges, but is that really a good excuse not to vote? After all, people all over the world have fought and died for the right to vote. The least we can do is carve out a few minutes to go to a polling center and cast our vote.
According to AmericanProcess.org, Americans typically have a reputation for being apathetic towards politics and voting in general, but politics in particular can cause
Americans' eyes to glaze over. Writer, Hattie Winters, said. "If you don’t vote, you immediately forfeit your right to object to how things are done. And everyone likes whining about the government, so why give that up?" If you don't voice your opinion by voting, your opinion becomes mute and useless because you didn’t take you time to voice your opinion in the actual election. Also, politicians are sometimes easy to dislike.
Their flaws are often aired publicly for the entire world to see, and many people generally distrust politicians based on this information. But even if you don't particularly like any of the candidates, do you really know them? And should it matter whether you like them or not? Perhaps a politician's stance on issues important to you is more important than whether or not they are likeable. Even if it's choosing the lesser of two or more evils in your eyes, voting is still an important way for you to voice your opinion about the subjects you care about most. Other excuses include that they are too busy, it takes too long, they don’t know much about politics, or simply just refuse to vote. So voting is essential because, unfortunately there will always be people that refuse to use their right to vote.

Voting is the single most important right that we have as Americans. It is what makes us a Democracy. It gives the people of the country their voice. Colorado State
University, political science student Ryan Deuschle wrote, that we have a duty to vote, to be involved and active in politics. As citizens we are responsible for the decisions and actions of our country and state. We choose what laws we wish to live under, how much to spend or borrow, what quality of air we want to breathe and water we want to drink.
We do all this through our representatives in government and through our own actions in our communities. Presidential elections, which have the highest voter turnout, are not the only important elections in the US, midterm elections are also important because in them we vote for the people who actually make laws and impact our daily lives.
According to StatisticBrain.com the number of people that vote is 64% of the eligible voters, while that may be a good amount of people, that means almost 75 million people are denying themselves the right to vote. A majority of the people included in that 75 million are between the ages of 18 and 25 and on average women vote more than men.
I hear and read a lot of criticism of the government, complaints about congress and the president. Last year Congress’s approval rating was 14 percent. 14 percent of
Americans thought that Congress was doing a good job. Yet when elections came last
November, 90 percent of Congress members were re­elected. People speculate that this is because, the people that elected them in the first place are the same people voting to re­elect them, and that the people that don’t approve aren’t voting because it’s not a presidential elections and people do not even bother to vote. Change is what is wanted and needed for this country yet we are re­electing the same people over and

over because the same people are voting over and over again. If those 75 million people voted who knows what would happen. Maybe we would end up with the same results, but maybe it would be for the better and cause change.
Voting is easily the most essential right that we have as Americans. It is our voice and it is how we can make an impact in government. Voting is something people spent their livelihood fighting for, yet people make countless excuses to why they don’t vote.
But people must remember that voting is extremely important to us thriving as a nation. th 64 percent is a good amount of people but the United States ranks 120 out of 169

countries in voter turnout. We need to get more involved in our government and the only way us citizens as a whole can do that is to use our right to vote. In the past people were deprived the right to vote based on gender and race, now we the people, are the only ones that are depriving us of our voting right. Go vote, let’s make a difference.