Written by Ben Elhav, Image courtesy of Alda Matos
As a general philosophy, Alda Matos thinks she should mind her own business.
A film and television major, with the ever-elusive art history minor, Matos says she still plans to vote even with her responsibilities as co-founder and co-president of the new Docs Club.
“I say this a lot jokingly, but I’m really serious about it — if things aren’t affecting me or don’t apply to me, it isn’t really my place to say that they aren’t a problem,” Matos said. As a cisgender person, for example, Matos says she doesn’t think it’s her place to support legislation that bars transgender people from the military.
For the same reason, as a woman, she says it bothers her when legislation concerning women’s healthcare is pushed forward largely by male legislators without proper consultation with the people actually affected by it. To Matos, a crucial part of being an ally is to listen to marginalized voices before speaking up.
She said she prefers to speak through the ballot box. At the same time, she isn’t sure this election matters more than any other. While Trump’s name being on the ticket has charged energy among Democrats, “the passion people feel about voting him out should be the passion that people feel at every election,” Matos said.
She insisted that people should get to know the candidates for elections all the way down to the local level. “If someone’s running to be property appraiser in your county you should research that person and make an informed decision,” Matos said.
Even so, there are issues that will bring Matos and millions of student voters like herself to the polls this year. With control of the Senate and Supreme Court to be decided, legislation that impacts trans people, women and the environment all hang in the balance.
Of particular importance to Matos is the COVID-19 response. She said she feels that right now there isn’t strong leadership and that the difficult, but necessary, policies that would help the United States catch up to the rest of the world aren’t being passed.
To Matos, the mismanagement of the crisis has only exacerbated existing problems. Among these is climate change: “It’s literally going to kill us all if nobody does anything,” Matos said.
To ensure she has a say, Matos said she will be voting with an absentee ballot. Ordinarily, it would be safe and convenient for her to vote in-person, since she’s from Florida. But this year, her ballot is arriving in the mail, and she plans to turn it in as soon as possible.
“I thought that the process of getting an absentee ballot would be more difficult than it actually was, but it turned out to be pretty easy,” Matos said.
Matos insists that students should make their election day plans now with sites like www.iwillvote.com. She certainly will.
