Contact us at: whispernthunder1@gmail.com“Even If It Doesn’t Count: Why the Wounded Must Still Vote”
~ Joelle Clark
There are people in this country, millions, who
carry wounds that don’t show up on ballots.
People displaced from their lands, their homes,
their histories. People who have been silenced
by violence, by bureaucracy, by the slow
erosion of trust. And when election season
rolls around, many of them stay home. Not
because they don’t care. But because they’ve been taught, over and over again, that their voice doesn’t matter.
They’ve seen promises broken. Watched leaders speak of justice while ignoring the poisoned water, the bulldozed burial grounds, the missing relatives. They’ve heard the word “freedom” used like a slogan, while their own communities are surveilled, incarcerated, erased.
So when someone says, “Your vote counts,” it can feel like a cruel joke.
But here’s the truth: even if the system is flawed, even if the odds are stacked, even if the machinery of power seems deaf to their cries, there is still a sliver of possibility. And sometimes, a sliver is all it takes.
Voting is not a cure. It won’t undo centuries of harm. But it is a contribution. A signal. A refusal to disappear. For the wounded and displaced, casting a vote is not just civic duty, it's an act of resistance.
It says: I am still here.
It says: You will not erase me.
It says: I will fight for the right to stand on my land, free and upright—not bowed, not broken.
Even if the vote doesn’t count the way it should, the act of casting it is a declaration. And in the off chance that it does count, if it tips a race, shifts a policy, protects a sacred site, then that vote may save not just one life, but many.
To those who’ve been told they don’t matter: you do.
To those who’ve been pushed to the margins: you are the center of
something sacred.
To those who’ve been wounded: your voice is still a weapon. Use it.
Because silence is what they count on.
And survival is what you owe yourself.