The fate of human civilization rests in the ballot box.

​Malcolm X bluntly articulated this to the American public in his "Ballot or the Bullet" speech, in 1964. He warned that the Jim Crow terrorism and voter suppression that African Americans faced during the Civil Rights era will eventually ignite an inextinguishable revolutionary fire. Every person scorched by the political, economic, and social flares of racism will eventually "catch hell" and fight fire with fire.

I often hear people say the reason they don't vote is because: "I don't like to get involved with politics," or, "politicians are corrupt."
 
Politics isn't something we can choose to do or not. Nor is it the root of all evil. To the contrary, politics is an inherent part of our existence. Human life is political. Our bodies are political. A good example of this is the pro-choice and pro-life debate. When is it right or wrong for a woman to have an abortion, if at all? Who decides? Another example is China's one-child policy, which stipulates when families can have one or two kids, in order to prevent overpopulation.

​As you can see, long before exiting our mothers' wombs, we were all political objects as ova (egg cells), sperm cells, zygotes, embryos, and fetuses.

Welcome to my weekly Voting Matters blog. This blog is about the significance of voting in American politics. In this first post, I will talk about what voting is and what it is supposed to do.

Some people believe that voting is just a tally of "yays" and "nays." And, the group with the most supporters enjoys all the spoils. Don't be fooled. Voting is more complicated than that and involves a lot more work, especially in American politics. In fact, the head count is just the tip of the iceberg.