I voted this morning, and I can’t stop thinking about the people who choose not to vote.

Why? Because at first, I was one of them too.

I always thought, why should I vote?

I am just one person and it doesn’t matter in the end.

It was also easy not to vote.

Going to stand in a line, waking up early and taking time out of my day all seemed like a hassle.

It all seemed pointless.

I was 18 when I skipped voting

Like a lot of young people, I felt unimportant.

What young Brandon did not realize is that one vote may seem unimportant, but it works like a domino effect.

Let’s say you decide to vote.

Your neighbors, cousins, or friends see you vote, so they decide to vote too.

Then their friends see they voted and also decide to vote.

You see the pattern?

My wife Talia Lopez was actually the person who motivated me to vote back in 2019.

It’s the same way your favorite influencer motivates you to drink a certain soda, use a certain service or buy clothing.

The domino effect

When you cast one vote, you show the people around you that their voice matters too.

This isn’t just my theory either. Claude, the AI assistant I use, shared a study with me about the effect.

Researchers looked at more than 60 million Facebook users in 2010 and found that seeing close friends vote made people more likely to vote themselves.

Getting in line

There are people who get in line for Pokémon cards, new games or even shoes and wait for hours.

It honestly took less than 10 minutes to vote this morning. I thought there would be huge lines, but no, it was a very smooth process.

I did not vote early, I voted today on election day.

(Shoutout to my local library for having things running efficiently.)

So why is getting in line for your future too much effort?

Voting for people who can’t

Remember, this is especially important for us Hispanics/Latinos who have loved ones who are non-citizens.

People we care about don’t have the luxury of casting a vote.

So when we vote, we are also using our voice to speak for the people who don’t get one.

If you have time today, please go vote.

Here is the site for voting information where you can see wait times and locations.

There are so many locations so finding an excuse is honestly very difficult.

I usually don’t get political on my blog, but it has become incredibly important to vote.

Without us speaking up, things will never change.

Thank you for reading!