The last time I went to vote, it took two hours. I stood in a line that snaked around

a school gym, and I watched as one by one each and every ballot scanner in the building

broke. Eventually I shoved my own ballot in an emergency box and hoped for the best.

As I left, I couldn't help but wonder, did my vote count? I think this is a question a

lot of people are asking themselves right now, as we stare down another presidential

election. Who counts? For some people. This is a question about whether you can get to

the polls at all. And what happens when you do? For others, this question is about a

fundamental lack of representation that's built in, has been for years. As someone who

lives in DC, do you feel like you count? Honestly, no. I'm one of those people who moved to DC

and felt like I lost my voice. Christina Kataruchi is a writer for Slate, and for her, like

me, this idea of counting is personal. She moved to DC for college, which is when she realized

because of where she lived, she had no senator, no vote in Congress. That made me so angry.

It felt like such a profound violation to have Congress, who, you know, we don't even have

a voting member in Congress to have them tell DC, you know, you can't govern your own

city in the way that you see fit. Like we're subject to all of the same things that everyone

else in America is, but we don't have an ability to even advocate for ourselves on the federal

level. This is a longstanding gripe in the district. The city even designed their license

plate to say taxation without representation as if it was the town motto. I mean, it's funny

because I grew up in Maryland. I saw those license plates. It always seemed like a subtle

troll. Yeah. And those license plates and kind of funny, but it sounds like for you, the funny,

like it's not even funny anymore. No, it definitely, you know, the longer I've lived here, the less

funny it's seemed because I see the effects of our disenfranchisement every day in terms of DC's

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