Your vote is your voice: Speak up | Opinion
Summer may be over, but election season is just heating up.
Rep. Joanna E. McClinton September 1, 2024
Summer may be over, but election season is just heating up.
Now is a great time to check your voter registeration. Remember, your vote is your voice.
Improving access to the voting booth is one of my top priorities as a representative in Harrisburg. Because voting is critical to sustaining and strengthening our democracy. And elections impact daily life in our communities, in our state and in our country. People around the world, and right here in the United States, have died fighting to secure the right to vote.
I was proud to moderate a roundtable at the National Liberty Museum recently that explored ways to improve our election system, including initiatives at the state and federal level. The roundtable’s participants represented a diverse group of civic organizations, like Make The Road PA, the NAACP, and Disability Rights PA. Each offered their perspectives on the greatest challenges and threats to our electoral system.
One of the topics the panel discussed was my legislation that would implement same day voter registration and early voting in Pennsylvania (H.B. 2369). Both of these measures have been widely adopted in other states and are incredibly popular with Pennsylvania voters.
We also discussed federal legislation that Sens. Bob Casey and John Fetterman, and democratic members of our state’s congressional delegation, have backed, including the Freedom to Vote Act and the John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act.
The Freedom to Vote Act is a comprehensive package being considered in Congress that would set federal standards to protect voting rights, prevent election subversion, and advance greater representation.?
The John R. Lewis Voting Rights Advancement Act, named for the civil rights trailblazer and former Georgia congressman, would modernize the Voting Rights Act of 1965 by strengthening legal protections against discriminatory voting policies and practices, and would move us closer to ending discrimination in voting and guaranteeing equal access to the ballot.
All three of these bills would help fortify our election system and our democracy, and are needed, especially at a time when our right to vote is at risk.
If your vote wasn’t valuable, people wouldn’t be trying to take your right to vote away.
Voting is important in this election, and every other election, too. In Pennsylvania, we have two elections a year, every year. The good news is there are more ways to vote now than there were a decade ago.
You can always vote in person, or your can vote by mail, or you can drop off your mail-in ballot at the county elections office on Election Day. And Pennsylvania elections are safe and secure, free and fair. Most importantly, our elections work best when you participcate.
While I fight to improve access to the ballot box for our neighbors, don’t forget to make your voice heard in every election.