Today is Election Day in many parts of the United States and while this year is a Presidential Election and is a big day to hit the polls, it made me compelled to share my story on how I registered to vote and going to the polls over the past twenty-some years.

For retrospect of this story, I live in Pennsylvania. Just a few weeks shy of my eighteenth birthday, I had gone to get a Photo ID at the local Driver’s License Center for purposes of enrolling in an employment program. When I had went to get my photo taken, I had learned that while I was 17 at the time, since the primary election had passed, I was eligible to register to vote, although I would be eligible to vote in the General Election that year, I was able to do so as if my life counted on it. It is something to this day that I take very seriously.

I can still remember the first time that I went to the polling place, my father’s former place of employment. In that council chamber for 15 years, twice a year I cast my ballots for mostly every election except maybe a few when I was away at trade school from municipal to state house and senate elections, to sending people to conventions to referendums and of course congressional, senatorial, and Presidential elections. It can be hard in a one square mile Borough that you have to elect at various times seven council positions and a mayor along with a Tax Collector.

There are also responsibilities of seating people to the local school board, of which I try to watch the meetings on YouTube when I can along with our County Commission so that I know how to properly vote for the next candidate in the next municipal election. It is also important to properly educate yourself on the issues that matter to you and know the dirtiness of each candidate and what they stand for and how it best suits you when going to cast the ballot.

Since living independently the last six years, my polling place has changed, and mail-in voting has been instituted since 2020. Because the polling place is hard to get to for me, I choose to do a mail-in ballot. I find mail-in ballot helpful because I can take my time and think about the candidates before selecting them due to sometimes the candidate not always being widely known.

In my county, the only drop-off option is at our local election bureau office, which thankfully is only a few blocks from my day service site. I have dropped off my ballot with ease a few weeks ago and for the first time, got a sticker that said, “I voted.” There was a sense of pride that I was doing my civic duty, and it mattered!

It does matter! Every vote matters! Therefore, I am proud that in this great nation that I have the capability to vote and have been doing so for as long as I have been doing it and I plan to do it as long as I am living. Remember, every vote counts!