Interesting article a friend sent me:As exit polls began rolling in following Super Tuesday, March 3rd, so did a common refrain: Young people are too lazy, disengaged, selfish, and apathetic to go vote. Some exit polls reported that youth turnout was down in Virginia, Tennessee, Vermont, North Carolina, and Alabama, and NPR reported that, so far, youth voter turnout has not kept pace with overall increase of Democratic voter turnout, compared to 2016. If young people are this frustrated with the current system, the reasoning went, why didn’t they show up at the polls?
The short answer? Voter suppression — which takes countless forms, including voter I.D. restrictions, inflexible work and school schedules that prevent citizens from taking time to vote, lack of civics education in schools, the sudden closing (or changing) of polling places, lack of childcare or eldercare, and hours-long wait times to cast a vote. A plethora of factors make voting in America less a thing everyone participates in, and more a competitive sport that seems to demand more training and planning than our systems currently offer.
[...]
Instead of attributing low voter turnout to laziness, it is time for American civics education to engage with the serious issues of suppression that cause the low young adult poll numbers. “When voter-friendly reforms are on the books, such as Election Day Registration, automatic voter registration, early voting, online voter registration, robust high school civics curricula that accompany pre-registration programs, and on-campus polling stations, we see a demonstrated boost in youth turn-out. It is easy to blame and chastise, but we need to pull up our sleeves and work together to implement proven solutions,” said Bromberg. In other words: We need to start now.
So youth turnout
is low, but it's not all our fault. Not sure what Illinois' excuse is, though. Democrats there control everything.
