Summer Archives

Sammy Cousino Nashville, TN - League of Women Voters of Nashville

I Don't Know How to Vote

Ever since taking AP U.S. Government and Politics in high school, civic engagement was my thing. I loved learning about elections and voting and democracy. Now to the average person, voting may seem boring, tedious even - something you do once every four years, if at all. By age 16 I was not your average person. I became engulfed in the idea of voting: what it means, the power a vote holds. I understood that voting matters. Voting is both a right and a duty – one that affects how the country is run and who runs it.

The purpose of my project this summer was to centralize and simplify voting information for young people looking to vote for the first time in the state of Tennessee. I worked in conjunction with fellow scholar Sophie Goddyn and the Nashville chapter of the League of Women Voters (LWVN). Under the guidance of the LWVN, Sophie and I created myfirstvotetn.org, a youth-friendly website that features six Youtube videos that explain election processes in a fun way.

I was so excited to start the project. After all, this was my thing. I keep up with politics. I watch the debates. I can recite you sections of the Voting Rights Act. So when I came face-to-face with an actual voting machine for the first time in my life, I was shocked to realize I had no idea how to use it. I thought to myself, I don’t know how to vote. This feeling persisted throughout my project. Though I learned how to use the voting machine, every week I found a new topic I knew nothing about. My questions would range from What photo IDs are acceptable in Tennessee? to What is the timeline for requesting and submitting an absentee ballot?

I became frustrated with the lack of clear, comprehensive, and easy-to-access voting information in the United States. How can we expect American youth to participate in democracy if even those already inclined to vote have trouble figuring out how to do so? My embarrassment over my lack of knowledge quickly became my motivation. I was reminded why creating the website was so important. It was my duty to learn this information along with Sophie so others can easily find and understand it.

I don’t expect our work this summer to change elections or even have a direct effect on youth voter turnout. But I do believe our project will increase the civic literacy of those who visit it. There are dozens of reasons people decide to forego their right to vote, but I hope with myfirstvotetn.org, not knowing how will not be one of them.

For more, please visit League of Women Voters of Nashville.