[Warning: You may like the play Hamilton more if you watch this.] This creative video, while not a news article, relates to a very real current event: low voter turnout. Why don't more people vote? Specifically, why don't more young people vote?
Maybe it's because they think their ONE vote won't make a difference. Or possibly because they are self-absorbed and don't recognize the collective responsibility of participation in a representative democracy that is the United States. I know these two scenarios because I didn't vote in my first presidential election. It was the fall of 2000 and I was in college 2 hours away from where I grew up. My dad told me to vote by mail (absentee ballot) and I missed the deadline. So the only way I could vote would be to drive the 2 hours home on election day and vote in my old elementary school gymnasium. I came up some excuse and didn't do it. While it's true my ONE vote wouldn't have swayed that election result, I know I didn't vote, am I ashamed. Knowing what I know now about the millions of Americans who fought, died, protested, petitioned, and sacrificed for the right to vote -- the right I was privileged to have but took for granted -- I will forever vote and hope you all will too when you are of age.
If you are a citizen age 16-17, you can pre-register to vote before you turn 18 by going to this link.
If eligible, do people in your family vote? Do you plan to vote (if eligible) once of age?
Pouring over the graphs for how many people vote per age group, I think that we have started to take the right to vote for granted. This may be due to millennials believing that their vote won't count, as stated in the blog above. But this becomes a bigger problem when too many people believe this and start not voting. As American citizens, we are legally obligated to vote for our government and our laws. We need to realize that this is a pretty big thing, and even if one vote doesn't count, there never is only one vote. Another thing is that people just may not be able to vote. In my own family, my mother is technically still a Japanese citizen and not allowed to vote for our presidency. Perhaps a larger amount of people who can't vote is causing an influx in the system.
We actually aren't legally obligated to vote. The US does not have a "mandatory voter law" that some countries have. However, there's a moral obligation I would say (yet many people don't see it that way).
Pouring over the graphs for how many people vote per age group, I think that we have started to take the right to vote for granted. This may be due to millennials believing that their vote won't count, as stated in the blog above. But this becomes a bigger problem when too many people believe this and start not voting. As American citizens, we are legally obligated to vote for our government and our laws. We need to realize that this is a pretty big thing, and even if one vote doesn't count, there never is only one vote. Another thing is that people just may not be able to vote. In my own family, my mother is technically still a Japanese citizen and not allowed to vote for our presidency. Perhaps a larger amount of people who can't vote is causing an influx in the system.
ReplyDeleteWe actually aren't legally obligated to vote. The US does not have a "mandatory voter law" that some countries have. However, there's a moral obligation I would say (yet many people don't see it that way).
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