What can I, a person the ages 18 to 29 demographic, who is apparently in the 35% bloc of voters, do to convince my peers to vote? I've been trying to host a voting party, but honestly, that's gained approximately no traction despite promises of pizza, beer, and my company (har-har).But unfollowing electoral politics won’t make it disappear. And our political system will only grow more dangerous without your voice in its ear. So if you’re among the 65 percent of those ages 18 to 29 who plan to sit out the midterms, please consider the following five reasons to go to the polls.
I feel like a lot of people don’t vote because they feel like they they need to like everything the politician they vote for wants which is so wild to me. If you want to agree with everything a politician wants then get off your ass and become a politician ffs. It doesn’t help that people often act like you should regret your vote if a poltician does one thing you don’t like. I think it comes from romanticizing past political figures as if they did nothing wrong. Similar to the “good old day’s” mentality.
It's kind of analogous to a relationship. You don't need to, and won't, like everything about your partner. How can you expect anything different of your politician?
I think that's the problem exactly: "there's nobody good out there for me, therefore I'd rather be single" as if "single" was a choice when it comes to the city/state/nation you live in. You can't opt out of the rules, the money is going to be spent, and civics fundamentally belongs to the people who care the most. Chris Gregoire beat Dino Rossi by 129 votes. Al Franken beat Norm Coleman by 200 votes. In both cases that's like a single senior class spread across an entire state as far as margin. And those are state races. If you're voting for a city ballot measure on an off year, yours might be one of 500 votes. Want kids to have textbooks? Well, it's coming out of property taxes, which are paid by old people, who always vote. The people who just finished using a social studies textbook that still talks about North Vietnam? Yeah, they're waiting for Mr. Right. And that's why their kids will also learn that the US must prevail in North Vietnam. Because of the Domino Theory.
Yup, I’ve yet to figure out a way to get people to understand this because they normally just shoot back that I’m telling them to settle for the lesser evil instead of accept reality as it has always been. The amount of people who literally crumble when things don’t go perfectly according to plan is ridiculous and it’s those same people who don’t want to vote for fear of being let down.
That's frustrating. One of the tacks I've taken is to point out that if they don't vote, they don't get to gripe about the outcome and that if you don't participate in democracy you can't expect to be a part of one. That at least tends to make the people I'm around feel guilty for not voting. And really, it's kind of amazing to find young people in Seattle who don't vote. I mean, the Stranger makes it stupid easy.
My ballot had 38 seats with more than one person running, and one school tax measure.
If you were a resident of the City of Seattle, you would vote for about fifteen different things on that list. Federal, State, City(all cities have different measures), legislative district (which may or not match your city but probably doesn't), as well as school district and fire district. It's routine that the ballot you're voting on does not match the ballot the next street over is voting on. This was tricky in the days before the internet. How do I pick a municipal court judge? But now you just google both assholes and look for the one who wants to "make X great again" and vote against him SO HARD
That's where I'm at. Trying to shame people on Instagram because I know they look at my "content"...that's a good cheat sheet! Going to have to share it, plus, it's pretty similar to have my ballot turned out after taking the time to read the entire voter pamphlet.
