Oprah Urges You to Vote "As if Your Life Depended on It"
On National Voter Registration Day, Oprah posted a video on Instagram explaining why it's so important that people exercise their right to vote in the 2020 election.
"This 2020 election holds the highest stakes we’ve known for our democracy in our lifetime," Lady O said. "Life as we know and hope for it to be is on the line."
To register to vote, request a mail-in ballot, or check your registration status, go to: https://nationalvoterregistrationday.org/.
For Oprah, democracy is not a spectator sport. On September 22, National Voter Registration Day, Lady O posted a video on Instagram encouraging her followers to vote, while explaining what's at stake in the 2020 presidential election.
"In a lifetime of interviewing people I learned that the most important question we can ask ourselves is 'what do I want?'" said Oprah, at the start of the video. "That question is necessary for setting the vision for your personal life. It also is vital in the collective vision of our country. What do we want?"
Wearing a sweater with the word "Vote" emblazoned on it, O of O explained the power of voting in America. "Voting is a giant step in the direction of the collective vision we hold for our country," she noted. "This 2020 election holds the highest stakes we’ve known for our democracy in our lifetime. Life as we know and hope for it to be is on the line, I believe."
Oprah continued: "What we need now more than ever is discernment...the ability to perceive and judge well, to recognize what is happening in plain sight. The divisiveness, the racial collisions, the hotspots of COVID that continually resurge, the death toll that we’ve now all normalized. All of it is a mirror trying to force us to look more closely at what we human beings are doing to each other. And get us ask the question, what do I want?"
In particular, Oprah emphasized that voting is the ultimate way to make your voice heard. "We can pray, we can protest—all good in a democracy of choices," she said. "But the only way to have a voice in moving yourself and our country forward is to VOTE. Every vote matters because you matter. Vote as if your life depended on it, because TRUST...it does."
Oprah has previously demonstrated her commitment to getting more people to the polls. In 2018, she teamed up with her longtime friend Maria Shriver, who is the former First Lady of California, to encourage people to vote in the midterm election, and she even went door-to-door canvassing on behalf of then gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams. More recently, in August 2020, she announced that Election Day would be a paid company-wide holiday for all of Oprah Winfrey Network employees so they can vote or volunteer.
To register to vote, request a mail-in ballot, or check your registration status, go to: https://nationalvoterregistrationday.org/.
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