Voting
Many of your who are visiting this website are too young to vote. So why should there be a section on voting? Why indeed! Because you will be children and young adults for a far shorter time than you will be grown-ups. You can be a grown-up for up to maybe 80 or 90 years. You are a child for about 10-12 years and a young adult for about 6-8 years, depending on your how you look at things and how mature you consider yourself to be.
Understanding your responsibilities as an adult should start while you are growing up, not when you turn eighteen years old.
And girls, take notice: The vote in many countries was hard-won for women. In the United States, women were not allowed to vote until 1920—that is less than 100 years ago. The right to vote for a country, an ethnic group, etc, is called ‘suffrage.’ The women who fought for the right to vote were called ‘suffragettes.’
These women were not treated kindly, nor were their children or families. But they knew it was important for women to have this right, so kept making it happen. We at princesstrue.com go to the polls for every election. Make your voice heard. Since you may be too young to vote in a regular election, encourage others who are old enough to take the time to study the issues and candidates, and then vote.
One person can make a difference!
GLOSSARY
candidate is someone who wants to hold a job in government which requires election by the people. You can usually only vote for one candidate for each job (like president, governor, mayor, and others).
civic comes from the word ‘city.’ People who live in cities (and even countries, which we all do!) are called ‘citizens.’ When you live at home, you have chores to do to help. It is something like that in a city and in a whole country. You do things to help make life smoother and better in your city and in your whole country.
ethnic has to do with a group of people who share a culture. A culture is made up of ideas, arts (including music, painting, dance and others), food and all those things that make various groups of people different and wonderful in their own ways. Different countries have different cultures, as do various religions. Various tribes in our world have different foods, holidays, dances and all those things which add to our world. An ethnic restaurant would serve food from a certain country, or cooked in a certain way.
hard-won this is when you get something you want only by very, very hard work. Sometimes it is more than hard work—sometimes people make fun of you because you are working on making something happen that many people disagree with.
issue When there is some problem that a city or nation wants solved, it is voted on. The problem is called an ‘issue.’ There are several ways to look at each one, and before a person votes, he should study all the ways to look at it, then decide which is the best way, and vote yes or no.
mature how grown-up you are in what you say and do
responsibility that is being able to make something happen, and say that you did it. If it did not turn out right, responsibility is doing whatever you can to fix it. It is also doing what you can about a situation that needs to be improved.
suffrage is the right to vote
