In Kuwait, women did not have the right to vote until May 2005. Currently, men serving in the military or police are not allowed to vote. In the Dominican Republic, members of the armed forces or national police are not allowed to vote. In Guatemala, active duty members of the armed forces may not vote and are restricted to their barracks on election day. In Lebanon, women can only vote if they’ve had an elementary education. In more than a dozen countries around the world, you must be 19 or older to vote; in many of these, it’s 21.

In the United States, you only have to be 18. We have been blessed with a fairly unrestricted right to determine our future. And yet, only 537 people decided the 2000 election. One vote counts. If you don’t know where to vote next week, visit http://www.maps.google.com/vote. GO VOTE!

And if listening to me isn’t enough, listen to this: