Do You Take Voting for Granted?

Iowa women give thought to whether or not they take voting for granted and why.

Transcript

I want young people to know and appreciate their right to vote, those who fought to get it for them because I always point out if you didn’t have it, you’d want it. And you look at what happened in the world with the fall of the Berlin Wall and how people would stand in line 12, 13 hours just to cast a vote. And in this country we worry about rain.

Do you take the right to vote for granted?

I probably do a little bit. It’s just something my whole life, people have been able to vote, women have held political office.

Oh heavens no. And I try to vote in every election that I possibly can.

To take something for granted means to not really, you know, consider it or put value in it. I don’t think I do that, so I don’t think I take it for granted because as a history teacher, I understand all of the stuff that both men and women had to go through to get the right to vote and I appreciate that and I often, I think about that, literally when I go to vote. I think about what happened to these men and women and that I have this privilege.

I do take my right to vote for granted to some extent because I think at this point, it doesn’t seem as huge of a struggle for me personally. But I also on the other hand don’t take it for granted because I do recognize that some people aren’t able to vote because their right to vote is being restricted still.

The way that voting is still suppressed, there’s still a fight to gain the right to vote. And so me being able to vote isn’t a thing that’s taken for granted, it’s a privilege that I have and so I feel that my vote is even more important because I have the privilege to vote.