Today, everyone who is able to vote will make a choice that will dictate the way our state and country operate for the next few years.

As you begin to make your decisions on who you will choose when voting, I encourage all of you to remember to make this choice on your own.

Not for your friends or for your family or spouse, but just for you.

I have voted in three presidential elections, and I had never witnessed the type of shaming that I had until the 2016 elections.

We’ve heard many times that men and women have died for our right to vote, and that we only have the right to walk into a polling booth and exercise one of our most important freedoms because of these people, and that’s true.

They also defended the right for anyone to believe how they want to and this includes when picking candidates they want to see in office.

We all have different views. That is what makes this country so unique and great. That is what separates us from so many others is that we are able to have so many different viewpoints in one country.

No matter what side you are on, there will always be criticism and opposition, so why not get behind platforms and ideas that matter to you?

Truly it is nobody’s business who we vote for.

That is why the dividers are up at polling places and that is why everything is counted electronically – apart from the convenience – is that these are all done anonymously. Nobody should know who you voted for even after the fact.

I encourage you to block out the influences of your friends and family and make your own voice heard.

No matter what others in your life say, don’t let that sway you into voting a certain way. That is not the way democracy was meant to be.

Your vote is your own and my vote is mine. It is one of the timeliest pieces in American history that made us who we are today. We don’t just have the right to vote, we have the right to the opinions that lead us to vote a certain way.

Good luck today, Dallas County, and let us not shame each other into voting a certain way.