Now if only they would actually turn out to vote in larger numbers…
Exactly, more than half of registered voters are over 50. So polling 50+ year olds would definitely be better data.
With all the new anti-voting laws, what percentage of young people can actually register to vote? Do they have valid ID? Can they get it? My grandmother died years ago, but she managed to make it 97 years without ever owning a photo ID. She didn’t drive, but she had a voter card and the bank knew her by sight as well as signature. In today’s world, I’m pretty sure she’d be disqualified from voting.
i wish i understood why people have such a large blind spot when it comes to gerrymandering and voter suppression.
both combined with extremely unpopular politicans and policies (ie gaza genocide) are the reason why people aren’t voting; but somehow, people are still confused as to why voters aren’t voting.
Neither are a problem in the European countries that I’m aware of yet young voter turnout is catastrophic there as well. Some parties definitely have a hard anti-Israel line. I’d be happy to see a counterexample but I think only bitter disappointment lays ahead.
Young people are increasingly disengaged from the “traditional” democratic process, globally. Less voter turnout, but also way less participation in traditional politics (which 25 year olds have a party membership card anymore?)
Interestingly though, Gen Z isn’t necessarily politically inactive; they are still being activists, engaging in political discourse, and are donating a larger average percentage of their income than Gen X/Y IIRC.
That’s not to excuse the extremely shortsighted decision not to vote, but the problem is a lot larger than some practical barriers. I truly think there are strong and multifaceted cultural elements to the youths increasingly not responding to the traditional representative democratic systems in the way that generations who grew up on TV did. Gerrymandering is bad, but don’t expect a hypothetical fix to bring zoomers to the voting centers.
While gerrymandering and voter suppression aren’t nothing, the system is just completely incapable of responding to signals it never receives. If you don’t vote, the system is not incentivized or designed to promote people who have your political interests in mind. There’s a lot of critical reforms that need to happen, none of them as urgent as ranked choice voting, but as little as your vote means for a federal election:
-
It means A LOT MORE for local elections, and these people have a shocking amount of power for how much people care about local races.
-
It’s still at least some signal to the system that can be interpreted or responded to. It can’t hurt. Throw your vote away on RFK or the Libertarian Party if you want. Hell, I voted for Jorgensen last election. But I’m telling you that not voting when you could is almost always going to lead to the worst possible outcome for people who share your political interests.
While gerrymandering and voter suppression aren’t nothing, the system is just completely incapable of responding to signals it never receives. If you don’t vote, the system is not incentivized or designed to promote people who have your political interests in mind. There’s a lot of critical reforms that need to happen, none of them as urgent as ranked choice voting, but as little as your vote means for a federal election
since you’re not seeing the circular reasoning here; i’ll try to make it more apparent: how do you vote when your vote is blocked?
Real problems are often used as convenient excuses to justify laziness. At the end of the day it’s your job as a citizen to do whatever it takes to vote. If you want it to be easier then jump through the hoops that currently exist to vote for the only party offering a way to remove some of them. If you don’t vote at all then your opinion is irrelevant. That’s the reality of the world we live in.
real world problems are the first words in your response; but it seems that you ignore them.
if the choice comes down to voting or pissing off your employer to take off to go vote; it’s a real world problem and you’re going to stay at work.
if the choice comes down to commuting home and make dinner for your kids or spending hours in line in a place like houston to go vote; it’s a real world problem and you’re going to go home to make that dinner.
i suspected that laziness was the knee jerk reaction that people had when it came to voter suppression and you’re coming from lemmy.world so that tracks and explains why republicans win elections despite there being so much fewer of them than democrats when democrats also don’t give a fuck.
