As an estimated 130 million Americans proceed in an orderly fashion to the polls today, we follow in the footsteps of more than four centuries of forebears who struggled to establish, extend, and defend our right to vote. As we perform our civic duty and exercise our franchise, it’s worth considering a few of the highlights in the long, winding, and often difficult journey that brings us to the polling stations we enter today.

April 26, 1607:
Shortly after the 105 colonists reached shore, Edward Maria Wingfield was elected President of the Council of Jamestown (Virginia), the first permanent British settlement in the Americas.

November 11, 1620:
Upon reaching the New World, Pilgrim settlers aboard the Mayflower composed and signed the Mayflower Compact which provided a mechanism for passing laws and governing the new Plymouth Colony. The Compact established a precedent that would influence the Founding Fathers as they drafted the U.S. Constitution.

1600s / 1700s:
As additional colonies were founded they developed different political structures and practices. In a small number of colonies, including Rhode Island and Connecticut, governors were elected rather than appointed by the Crown. In a few colonies, members of the lower house of the legislatures were elected rather than appointed.

1760s:
The slogan “no taxation without representation” became a rallying cry of colonists chafing under Crown rule.

July 2, 1776:
The colony of New Jersey ratified a constitution providing that “all inhabitants … who are worth fifty pounds,” including women and people of color, would be entitled to vote. (In 1807 the provision was rewritten to exclude all but white men.)

July 4, 1776:
The Second Continental Congress of the American colonies ratified and published the Declaration of Independence, asserting the radical proposition that “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just Powers from the Consent of the Governed, that whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these Ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it and to institute new Government.”

1780s:
During constitutional debate, Benjamin Franklin famously lampooned property-based voting qualifications thusly: “Today a man owns a jackass worth fifty dollars and he is entitled to vote; but before the next election the jackass dies. The man in the meantime has become more experienced, his knowledge of the principles of government, and his acquaintance with mankind, are more extensive, and he is therefore better qualified to make a proper selection of rulers – but the jackass is dead and the man cannot vote. Now gentlemen, pray inform me, in whom is the right of suffrage? In the man or in the jackass?”

September 17, 1787:
After extensive work and great debate that threatened to separate the newly independent States, the proposed U.S. Constitution was completed and signed at a convention convened in Philadelphia. Among the provisions in the document was a prohibition on religious tests for holding public office.

December 7, 1787:
Delaware became the first State to ratify the Constitution, followed quickly by Pennsylvania and New Jersey.

June 21, 1788:
New Hampshire became the 9th State to ratify the Constitution (after Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maryland, and South Carolina), which per the terms of the document constituted the minimum number necessary to bring the Constitution into effect and constitute the new Nation. The first Congress was seated and the Constitution formally came into effect on March 4, 1789.

February 4, 1789:
George Washington was elected the first President of the United States, receiving all 69 votes in the Electoral College.

December 15, 1791:
The Bill of Rights (the first 10 Amendments to the U.S. Constitution) went into effect when Virginia ratified the package, hitting the required threshold of ratification by 3/4 of the States then in the Union. Along with safeguarding the free exercise of religion, the First Amendment specifically prohibited Congress from “abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances,” all fundamental to informed exercise of the public franchise.

November 10, 1821:
The State of New York ratified a second State constitution that dropped property requirements for white men. Non-white men were required to have a net worth of more than $250 in order to vote.

September 30, 1822:
Joseph Marion Hernández of Florida became the first Hispanic American elected to Congress. Raised in a Spanish colony, he became a naturalized American citizen when the territory was admitted to the Union.

December 1, 1845:
David Levy Yulee of Florida became the first Jewish American elected to the U.S. Senate.

July 19, 1848:
The first Woman’s Rights Convention convened in Seneca Falls, New York. Elizabeth Cady Stanton rallied delegates to the cause of women’s suffrage with her Declaration of Sentiments, based on the Declaration of Independence.

July 9, 1868:
The Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, establishing “equal protection of the laws” and prohibiting States from “mak[ing] or enforc[ing] any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.” The Amendment created a penalty on States that attempt to limit or deny the right to vote of male citizens over age 21.

February 3, 1870:
The Fifteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, providing that “the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.”

February 25, 1870:
Hiram Revels of Mississippi became the first African American elected to the United States Senate.

May 10, 1872:
Victoria Woodhull of Ohio became the first women to run for the American Presidency, as the candidate of the Equal Rights Party. She ran a vigorous campaign but was arrested on obscenity charges several days before the election.

November 5, 1872:
Susan B. Anthony and several other women were arrested for attempting to vote in that year’s Presidential election.

April 4, 1887:
In Argonia, Kansas, Susanna Medora Salter became the first women elected mayor of an American municipality.

July 10, 1890:
Wyoming became the first U.S. State (and one of the first sovereign jurisdictions anywhere) to grant women full suffrage rights. Colorado (1893), Idaho (1896), and Utah (1896) soon followed suit, then Washington (1910), California (1911), and several other Western and Plains States. (As an interesting aside, the Wyoming Territory had instituted women’s suffrage in 1869 and insisted that retaining suffrage was a condition of its accepting the invitation to enter the Union as a State.)

April 12, 1892:
Designed to prevent voter fraud, the first mechanical voting machines were introduced in an election in Lockport, New York.

1898:
South Dakota became the first State to establish a referendum and initiative mechanism to allow citizens to propose and vote directly on State and local laws. Oregon followed suit in 1902, and the process became a signature reform of the Progressive Era. Today, 24 States (including my home State of California) and the District of Columbia have referendum and initiative systems in place.

March 4, 1903:
Jonah Kuhio Kalanianole became the first person of Native Hawaiian descent to serve in the U.S. Congress (as delegate from Hawaii).

1904:
The first-ever public election was held (in Florida) to select the delegates who would attend a national party’s Presidential nominating convention.

1910:
Oregon established the first direct Presidential preference primary election. Several States held primary elections in the run-up to the 1912 Presidential election..

April 8, 1913:
The Seventeenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, providing for direct election of U.S. Senators by the People rather than by State legislatures.

November 7, 1916:
Jeannette Rankin of Montana became the first woman to be elected to Congress.

August 19, 1920:
The Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, providing that “the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.” Prior to ratification, 15 U.S. States and territories had already granted women full suffrage.

November 4, 1924:
Miriam “Ma” Ferguson of Texas and Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming became the first women elected as State governors.

November 6, 1928:
Charles Curtis became the first person with Native American ancestry to be elected to one of the two highest offices in the United States, as President Herbert Hoover’s Vice President. In 1907 he had been the first person with Native American ancestry to serve in the U.S. Senate.

July 12, 1932:
Hattie Wyatt Caraway of Arkansas became the first women elected to the U.S. Senate.

January 3, 1957:
Dalip Singh Saund of California became the first Asian American and the first Sikh to serve in Congress.

August 22, 1959:
Hiram Fong of Hawaii became the first Asian American elected to the U.S. Senate.

November 8, 1960:
John F. Kennedy became the first Roman Catholic to be elected President of the United States.

March 29, 1961:
The Twenty-third Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, for the first time granting to citizens resident in the District of Columbia the right to vote in Presidential elections.

January 23, 1964:
The Twenty-fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, providing that the right of citizens to vote in federal elections “shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or any State by reason of failure to pay any poll tax or other tax.”

July 2, 1964:
Congress passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964, outlawing major forms of discrimination against racial, ethnic, and religious minorities and women, and ending unequal voter registration requirements.

August 6, 1965:
Congress passed the Voting Rights Act, disallowing certain voter registration and elections practices that were viewed as still causing widespread disenfranchisement of minority citizens.

November 5, 1968:
Shirley Chishom of Brooklyn, New York became the first African American women elected to Congress.

November 3, 1970:
Herman Badillo of the Bronx, New York became the first person of Puerto Rican descent to be elected to Congress.

March 23, 1971:
The Twenty-sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified, lowering the voting age from 21 to 18.

1974:
Kathy Kozachenko of Michigan won a seat on the Ann Arbor City Council, becoming the first openly LGBT person to be elected to public office in the United States. Later in the year Elaine Noble of Massachusetts became the first openly LGBT person to be elected to a State legislature.

July 18, 1984:
Geraldine Ferraro of New York was nominated as the first woman to run for Vice President on a major party ticket.

September 28, 1984:
Congress passed the Voting Accessibility for the Elderly and the Handicapped Act, requiring that voter registration sites and polling places in federal elections be configured to provide appropriate physical access. In July 1990, the Americans with Disabilities Act expanded the physical access requirements.

November 3, 1992:
Carol Moseley Braun of Illinois became the first African American woman elected to the U.S. Senate. She would later serve as American Ambassador to New Zealand.

May 20, 1993:
Congress passed the National Voter Registration Act, streamlining voter registration processes and allowing them to be linked to other functions such as obtaining or renewing a driver’s license.

November 6, 2006:
Keith Ellison of Minnesota became the first Muslim elected to Congress.

September 4, 2008:
Sarah Palin of Alaska was formally nominated as the second woman to run for Vice President on a major party ticket.

November 4, 2008:
Barack Obama of Illinois became the first African American elected President of the United States.

Today:
Who knows what will happen in the thousands of individual races and hundreds of ballot initiatives being decided across the country. The Founders viewed democracy as a work in perpetual progress, as an ongoing effort to form a more perfect Union. So, there are likely to be more highlights ahead.

For now, though, I will leave you with the following apropos words of wisdom from four of the Americans whom I admire most:

“Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country.”
Samuel Adams

“The people who say they have not time to attend to politics are simply saying they are unfit to live in a free community.”
Teddy Roosevelt

“Nobody will ever deprive the American people of the right to vote except the American people themselves — and the only way they could do this is by not voting.”
Franklin D. Roosevelt

“Elections belong to the people. It is their decision. If they decide to turn their back on the fire and burn their behinds, then they will just have to sit on their blisters.”
Abraham Lincoln

When Americans cast their votes tomorrow, the marquee decision will be who serves as the American President for the next four years. The choices, though, will go far beyond President Obama vs. Governor Romney. On this important day on the democratic calendar, there will be a plethora of decisions for voters make. For starters, despite the depiction of head-to-head competition between our well-known Democratic and Republican party candidates, there are several other folks running for President.

In our federal system, each State is responsible for determining the criteria candidates must satisfy to appear on the ballot. The Democratic and Republican parties’ have the largest memberships registered to vote, and their Presidential candidates consistently qualify to appear on the ballots in all 50 States. Several other political parties will be represented across the country, although not all of those qualify to appear on the ballots in every State.

This year Oklahoma will be the only State with just the two major-party Presidential candidates on the ballot. With 17, Colorado wins the prize for having the most Presidential candidates on the ballot. Florida’s Presidential ballot will also be crowded, with 12 options.

The range of candidates and the parties represented on the ballot in various States embody the great diversity of opinion within the United States. Our political spectrum is certainly not a narrow one. Even comedian and former sitcom star Roseanne Barr, representing the Peace & Freedom Party, will appear on the ballot in three States — Colorado, Florida, and my home State of California (where six candidates will appear).

On October 23rd, the nonprofit Free and Equal Elections Foundation organized a debate hosted by Larry King in which four Presidential candidates other than President Obama and Governor Romney participated. Each of those four other candidates is listed on a sufficient number of State ballots to theoretically win the election.

They are Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson (the former Governor of New Mexico) who will be listed on ballots in 48 states, Green Party candidate Jill Stein (a physician and environmental-health advocate) who has qualified to appear on the ballot in 37 states, Constitution Party candidate  Virgil Goode (a former U.S. Representative from Virginia) in 21 states, and former Justice Party candidate Rocky Anderson (former Mayor of Salt Lake City).

The Free and Equal Elections Foundation held an online run-off poll after the first debate and then scheduled a second debate (for November 5th) between the two top voter getters, the Libertarian Party’s Gary Johnson and the Green Party’s Jill Stein.

Despite lower profiles, the presence of third-party candidates in the 2012 Presidential race continues a long and august American political tradition. Some third parties, of course, have been more influential than others. For example, former President Theodore Roosevelt’s Progressive Party (nicknamed the Bull Moose Party) made a serious run during the 1912 election. Many historians believe that the Bull Moose vote split the support of incumbent President William Taft, thereby enabling Woodrow Wilson’s victory.

Eighty years later, businessman Ross Perot’s independent candidacy in the 1992 election won him nearly 19% of the popular vote, which some analysts believe helped deliver the White House to candidate Bill Clinton by drawing crucial conservative votes away from incumbent President George H.W. Bush. Eight years after that, some analysts believe that Green Party candidate Ralph Nader facilitated George W. Bush’s Electoral College victory over Al Gore because his 3% of the popular vote was concentrated in certain battleground States.

Because the Presidential / Vice Presidential race is the only one on which all Americans vote, it naturally gets the lion’s share of press coverage in the U.S. and virtually all of the press coverage overseas. It is important to remember, though, that the Presidency is not the only elected office on the ballot. Our national Government has a second elected branch (Congress) with two chambers (House and Senate). Our federal system also comprises layers of elected State, county, and city governments, and there are elected school, health, neighborhood, and other boards in various locations as well.

What does that mean in terms of numbers? Well, across our 50 States, all 435 seats in the House of Representatives will be up for reelection, along with 33 of the 100 seats in the Senate. At the State level, 11 governorships will be contested this year, as will more than 80% of the country’s 7,382 State legisture seats. I have not found a reliable total number of mayor, city council, and board seats on the ballot, but they number in the thousands. Fortunately, though, voters don’t have to wade through all of that because you can only vote in your home district, which tends to limit the number of races in front of you to a dozen or so.

In 24 States, including my home State of California, voters will also face choices on which laws to enact, through the ballot initiative process which allows citizens to put recommended laws and/or constitutional amendments up for State-wide public vote by collecting a certain number of signatures in the State. While not providing for voter initiatives, three additional States have processes by which the legislature can put legislative measures on the ballot for public vote. As I recall, this year my ballot contained 11 pieces of proposed State-wide legislation on which I was asked to vote yes or no, as well as city and county measures.

I know that there are vociferous critics of the initiative process, and wading through the proposed laws takes a bit of time. As always, there are compelling arguments on both sides. Frankly, though, I never feel more a democrat (small “d”) than when I’m voting directly to tax (or not) myself, to remove (or not) traffic-ticket cameras from our city’s intersections, to establish (or not) a stem cell research institute, to raise (or not) the minimum wage, or to strengthen (or weaken) environmental standards.

Finally, as we enter the 48-hour countdown to tallying all those votes, it’s worth noting that Election 2012 has already begun with many States initiating early voting. I have been told that early voting in New Zealand elections is a relatively small phenomenon, but in the United States this year it is projected that a record 35-40% of all U.S. voters will cast their ballots before the polls open on November 6th. That represents tens of millions of voters.  Some analysts predict that in key battleground States (such as Florida, Iowa and North Carolina) the early voting rates will even be higher.

Voting began in some States as early as September and is now well underway in all 50 States through mail-in or in-person processes. As usual, I voted a month ago on the day that I received my mail ballot from Los Angeles. (I always vote, but I think that I have only stepped into a voting booth once in my life.) Another one of the millions of early voters this year was President Obama, who on October 25th officially became the first sitting President to vote early in-person when he cast his own ballot in his hometown of Chicago.

So, stay tuned. The 2012 wave of American electoral activity will crest tomorrow. Most eyes will be on the Presidential race, but the great populist machinery of democracy will hum, whirr, and occasionally stutter in thousands of other races, on hundreds of ballot initiatives, and in more than a million polling booths across the continent, to the Arctic circle, and at the heart of the Pacific Ocean.

The American election is a true celebration of vibrant pluralist democracy, not only in the United States but elsewhere. Whatever one’s view of various and sundry details, and regardless of the outcomes, tomorrow is a great exercise in self-governmance, of exercise of free will, of We the People taking responsibility. As H.G. Wells said, “The greatest task of democracy, its ritual and feast, is choice.”

Of course, many of the races have been hard-fought, positions have been forcefully and not always politely expressed, and messaging has flooded our field of vision for months. That exuberance sometimes frightens or annoys. It sometimes creates confusion and gridlock. But, at root, it is what makes our system resilient, flexible, and real. Bill Moyers perhaps said it best:  “Although our interests as citizens vary, each one is an artery to the heart that pumps life through the body politic, and each is important to the health of democracy.”

If you are an American citizen living overseas and have not yet voted, you are almost out of time to cast your ballot. If you don’t want to miss your chance to help select our country’s leaders, you should go to www.FVAP.gov, print your Federal Write-in Absentee Ballot, and make your selections today.

You can determine at www.FVAP.gov whether your State allows you to fax or email your ballot back. If no such electronic option is available, you should deliver your sealed ballot to the Embassy or the Consulate General by midday tomorrow, Thursday, November 1st, so that we can pouch it back to the United States for you.

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Among my core beliefs is that with rights come responsibilities. With the freedom to choose comes the obligation to choose rather than sit back and rely on other folks to do your choosing for you. So, apropos of the season, I suggest the following:

If you are an American citizen living abroad and haven’t yet made arrangements to vote, take a look today at www.FVAP.gov. It’s a very user-friendly website and quickly walks you through the steps necessary to get your ballot. If you are already registered to vote, the process is straightforward. (If you’ve never before registered to vote, there is some complexity because the deadlines for registering in certain States may have already passed.)

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