New U.S. Citizen Plans First Vote Despite Candidate Reservations

Agustina Vergara Cid will cast her first U.S. ballot this Tuesday. The Southern California News Group columnist became a U.S. citizen last year, ending a period of living in the country without the right to vote. She describes the upcoming election as a milestone, even though she says she is not particularly excited about any of the candidates.

Vergara Cid arrived in the United States in 2017. She spent the next eight years building a career and a family while living under immigration laws she had no say in shaping. She noted that she could speak, write, and argue about those laws, but she had to watch from afar when Americans chose their representatives.

Her voting history is different from her current experience. In her home country of Argentina, voting is compulsory for residents between the ages of 18 and 70. She described the process as a state decision rather than a personal choice. She recalled waiting in line for hours on election Sundays to cast a ballot or leave it blank. She characterized the political menu during her years of Peronist rule as consisting mainly of collectivists.

Vergara Cid states that the candidates in this year's midterm election are not freedom fighters. She argues that no realistic candidate fully stands for the protection of individual rights, a principle she identifies as central to the country's founding. She views the right to choose representatives as concrete rather than abstract because of her previous exclusion from the process.

She frames voting as the act of choosing an agent rather than an overlord. Citing the Declaration of Independence, she says governments derive just powers from the consent of the governed. This means the government holds only the powers citizens delegate to protect their rights. She emphasizes that her vote is hers alone and that the government must ask for it.

Vergara Cid acknowledges that the government often arrogates illegitimate powers. She notes that this can lead some people to abstain from voting. However, she believes choosing an agent does not require endorsing everything the candidate stands for. She can judge one candidate as better than another at protecting rights without approving both candidates' violations of those rights.

She does not pretend her single vote will change concrete outcomes. She argues that if measurable impact were the only test, few acts of civic participation would qualify. She is voting to express her judgment about who may act in her name. She retains the right to choose not to vote in the future without being punished for that decision.

After voting on Tuesday, Vergara Cid plans to drive to work. She intends to continue speaking up for the ideas that brought her to the United States. She believes that changing the menu of candidates depends on the American people embracing and advocating for the principles that made the country free.