VOTE, 'ONE PLUS ONE' AND 'BREATHE'

Sophia Asmah

Nov 5, 20243 min read

Here we are, and its election day, 4th November 2024, in the United States of America... ‘BREATHE!’

I guess the timing of this blog is my stress reliever because I can’t deny that I have butterflies in my tummy. Now, I just want to fast forward to ‘we can project that the winner with 270+ electoral votes is …’

What an election cycle this has been! I will write a blog about a few events at a later date, but I have to mention this. Even the issue of husbands preferring ‘mail in ballots’ because they can ensure that their wife’s vote was the requisite vote became topical. Unbelievable! That never, for one second, crossed my mind. It may seem as though women have a lot of untold stories.

My focus however is on voting and how to possibly get through the hours during the counting phase until the winner is announced.

According to history, voting began in 508 BC in Ancient Greece when on a yearly basis, male landowners voted to exile a political leader for the next ten years. It required a minimum total of 6000 votes for a candidate to be exiled. If several candidates attained the minimum of 6000 votes, then the person with the highest votes was ousted. This could possibly be referred to as ‘negative voting’ but it was still a form of voting.

In the 13th century a Great Council of 40 members was set up in the Venetian state. People voted for the member of the council whom they liked, and the winner was the person with the highest number of votes.

I guess that would count as the origin of our current voting systems whereby we vote for our preferred ‘liked candidate.’

Fortunately, in a democracy, one of the rights of the citizenry is the right to vote. Therefore, it is incumbent upon us to exercise this ‘right to vote’ so that our individual votes are counted and reflected in the total votes.

We are inevitably presented with options of candidates for an elected office. We should make our choice based on the options we are presented with, so that our voices are heard through our votes.

Vote by mail or

vOte in person

voTe early or

votE election day.

VOTE ‘cos it’s your right!

It is indeed your right, my right… our right. So, once our votes are cast then the counting begins. I refer to this as the ‘One plus one’ process. There is no election without using math and that’s where my excitement kicks in. I love math and I actually woke up with my poem ‘One plus one’ on my mind. I guess that was because today is election day, and the counting of votes will begin today.

The following is a quote from that poem:

One plus one

Is always two.