After 19 years in the United States, Maria Victoria Murillo, a political science professor at the School of International and Public Affairs and an Argentinean native, hasn’t missed an election yet. But that doesn’t mean she thinks they’re terribly important—at least, not here.
“We know already the Democrats are going to win. Why would you bother? ... For the most part, it makes no rational sense to vote. I do it only out of civic duty,” Murillo said, adding that there’s a lot more at stake in most elections in Latin American countries, where voting is compulsory and many are still shaking off the ghosts of military dictatorships.
Murillo became a citizen of the United States in 2004, just after Bush's successful re-election. She didn’t want to be sidelined during future elections, she said.
But over the years, she said she has realized that her participation does not carry the same meaning as it did back at home.
“In Latin America, voting changes much more of your life than here. … Obama came, and my life is still the same,” she said.
Murillo said she votes mainly on two issues: human rights and immigration. As a child growing up in Buenos Aires, Murillo had friends whose parents were directly impacted by violence.
“I come from a country that suffered a military dictatorship where people were kidnapped, abducted, disappeared, and tortured. I didn’t know these things could happen under a democracy, so I feel very strongly against those things,” Murillo said, adding that she was a zealous advocate of human rights even as a teenager.
But in an election that hasn’t raised many concerns about immigration or human rights violations, Murillo said she votes only out of a sense of duty and mostly along party lines.
Most people who are not political science professors, she said, “are minding their business” and not voting.
In the countries that Murillo studies, particularly Argentina, Chile, and Venezuela, voting is mandatory. In addition, lower-class citizens are more inclined to vote as there are fines and penalties for not participating, which can pose a financial burdens for those who can’t afford to pay them.
Murillo said she misses the way elections are conducted back home, where Election Day takes place on lazy Sundays with nothing else to do, and everyone still votes via paper ballot and envelope.
Still, her husband, a U.S. citizen, won’t vote, she said. He believes that Americans don’t vote, so immigrants shouldn’t either.
She said of her husband, “He says, ‘I’m more American than you. I don’t vote.’”
An earlier version of this article stated that Murillo had been a citizen of the United States since 1991. She has lived in the United States for 19 years but only became a citizen in 2004. Spectator regrets this error.
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