I have always believed that voting is a responsibility of every citizen. To me, if you don’t vote, how do you expect to have any input in how the country is run? America has seen what can happen in eight years, and if we only hold elections every four years, we need to vote every time we have the opportunity.

I knew I would have to vote via absentee ballot when I decided to study abroad in New Zealand this fall. I voted in the primaries before I left, but I didn’t start the process to get my absentee ballot for the presidential election until well after I arrived in New Zealand. I got my absentee ballot by faxing in an application that I found online, and I received it about a week later.

While studying abroad this semester, I have had the odd experience of watching our election from outside the United States. I am acutely aware of the mass media coverage it gets in New Zealand. I have been impressed with my conversations with Kiwis who seem to know just as much if not more than I do about this presidential election.

In my classes, I’ve talked with students and professors who complain that Kiwis follow the U.S. election more closely than their own. Americans have known for awhile that our war was affecting many other countries, but I never fully realized the ramifications of our decisions until the economy crashed. I immediately read news stories about the worldwide financial crisis. In New Zealand, people are having trouble taking out home loans just like in the US.

In our current situation, this year’s election will impact other countries perhaps more than ever. If we don’t owe it to our own country to vote, then we owe it to the world.

Send in your Election Day thoughts and reasons for voting to [email protected].