This Fourth of July holiday, one month after Senator Obama clinched the Democratic presidential candidacy and on the cusp of what will likely be an historic election season, the simple act of voting and freedom weighs on my mind.

Democracy is only equal when everyone has a voice in its implementation, a vote that is all too easily usurped by legal voter disenfranchisement. I’ve never considered more the privilege of voting as I have this year - and let’s be honest: even though voting is coined as a right, it is a privilege, as the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections made abundantly clear in Florida and Ohio. Despite my misgivings about the Electoral College and the general state of two-party politics, that I have a ballot in my hands at all is something for which I am grateful. With all the talk of election reform in the air, to me the only real election reform is one that absolutely ensures voting rights, instead of voting barriers and apologies long after the polls are closed.