What You Need to Know About Voting -- and Why by In the introduction to her book What You Need to Know About Voting and Why (featured in the "Further Reading" box to the left), law professor Kim Wehle writes: "For most Americans, the sole and pragmatic answer to America's problems lies -- if anywhere -- at the ballot box. If we want change, we have to vote."
Kim Wehle, What You Need to Know About Voting and Why (New York: Harper, 2020), 3.
We see news headlines all the time about things that the President, or Congress, or the Supreme Court has done and the impacts that these decisions will have on Americans' lives. But these are not decisions that are made by chance: every person in every branch of the United States government is there, directly or indirectly, as the result of a previous election. Voting is of great importance because, as a democracy, it is how we collectively choose our elected officials and leaders, both nationwide and within our own states.
Yet voting can also feel complicated and confusing to those who are participating in the process for the first time: it can be difficult to know how to get started or where to find information about everyone and everything on the ballot that you receive in the mail. This guide is intended to help make the voting process easier to understand so that you, as a voter, can know how to make an informed decision and make your voice count!
