Are suburban, college-educated NeverTrumpers cancelling out progressives?

[Tintrlvr]

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.

Overall, the primary issue is that many young people do not see elections as a way to enact actual change. Of course, they are wrong and right at the same time. They are wrong in not seeing election as a vehicle for change - it's arguably the only way for many issues. But they are right in that beyond theory, government has become useless at the federal level for all but the most incremental changes, usually driven by the executive branch - or at least until the Roberts court decides that Congress has given up too much of its lawmaking power.

Illinois actually has a very pro-voter election system (even if they botched the rollout of automatic voter reg). If young people didn't vote, for most it is because they didn't want to. The left should really double down on increased civic education throughout K12. And this means not just one or two classes over the entirety of middle/high school.

Another policy that should be pursued, but has steep opposition even among Democrats, is letting 16 year olds and up vote. Reliable voters do so out of habit, and the way to build lifelong habits is to encourage the behavior early in life. Further, allowing students to vote while living at home would be self-reinforcing for the parents and the teenagers. Parents going to vote will encourage their sons and daughters to as well, and vice versa.

The main problem I think with letting 16/17-year-olds vote is that, on average, they're going to be very dependent on their parents and therefore inclined to parrot their parents' views rather than vote something resembling their own views. In that sense, having voting tied to the age when you are expected to first leave home or start to be more fully independent carries real meaning: It's also when you can be expected to start thinking independently about your political views.

I don't have an objection necessarily to 16/17-year-olds voting, but you should recognize that it is *really* empowering 40/50-year-olds (their parents) and the favored views of people around that age and not young voters.



On the topic of voting suppression leading to lower youth turnout: Maybe on the very margins, but youth turnout is just as bad in states that make it really easy to register and vote.