NEWSMeghan Markle Talks About Why She Is Going To Vote In The US Elections
Meghan Markle, after her move to the US with Prince Harry earlier this year, is all set to vote in the U.S. presidential election. Recently, she joined the likes of 99 other influential women, including Oprah Winfrey, Michelle Obama, and Hillary Clinton, to talk about their reasons for voting.
Meghan showed up as an interviewer to speak to the CEO and co-founder Emily Ramshaw for the launch of The 19th* — an organization “shine a light on the unfinished business of the 19th Amendment and empower women.”
The Duchess spoke about the fact that “it’s nice to have a voice” and also stressed upon how it’s “like to feel voiceless.”
Meghan said: "I also know that so many men and women have put their lives on the line for us to be heard. And that opportunity, that fundamental right, is in our ability to exercise our right to vote and to make all of our voices heard."
"One of my favorite quotes, and one that my husband and I have referred to often, is from Kate Sheppard, a leader in the suffragist movement in New Zealand, who said, 'Do not think your single vote does not matter much. The rain that refreshes the parched ground is made up of single drops,' " continued the Duchess, who recently turned 39 Aug. 4.
“That is why I vote," she added.
Meghan also spoke about how it was like to look at the United States’ affairs after living for almost ten years in Canada and the UK.
“To come back and to just see the state of affairs, I think at the onset. If I’m being honest, it was just devastating. It was so sad to see where our country was in that moment,” she said.
“If there’s any silver lining in that, I would say that in the weeks after the murder of George Floyd, in the peaceful protests you were seeing, in the voices that were coming out, in the way that people were actually owning their role and acknowledging their role that they had played, either actively or passively, in the discrimination of other people, specifically of the Black community, it shifted from sadness to a feeling of absolute inspiration, because I can see that the tide is turning.”
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Even though members of the British royal family do not vote in elections in a bid to remain politically neutral, Meghan will be going ahead and casting her vote as there is no law that’s forbidding it.
"As Head of State The Queen has to remain strictly neutral with respect to political matters," states the royal family’s website. "By convention, The Queen does not vote or stand for election, however. Her Majesty does have important ceremonial and formal roles in relation to the government of the U.K."
The palace had previously expressed that Meghan had plans of becoming a U.K. citizen after marrying Prince Harry in 2018. However, it didn’t turn out to be so as the couple moved to the US with their 1-year-old son Archie.
Meghan, in her recent talk, didn’t reveal who she was rooting for, but she had previously spoken about her feelings for Donald Trump during the 2016 US elections.
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"Of course, Trump is divisive—think about female voters alone," she said on The Nightly Show with Larry Wilmore. "I think it was in 2012. The Republican Party lost the female vote by 12 points. That’s a huge number and as misogynistic as Trump is — and so vocal about it — that’s a huge chunk of it."
Meghan has been quite vocal when it comes to political affairs as she also spoke about the suffering of women during her New Zealand visit in 2018.
"Because yes, women’s suffrage is about feminism, but feminism is about fairness,” she said.
She added: “Suffrage is not simply about the right to vote but also about what that represents: the basic and fundamental human right of being able to participate in the choices for your future and that of your community, the involvement and voice that allows you to be a part of the very world that you are a part of."
