The Young and the Voiceless

The preliminary numbers are in, and America’s youth vote has lost again. Despite an historic push by numerous groups, including Rock the Vote and Vote or Die, it seems that more voters ages 18-30 voted than in the last election, yet only in proportion to the increased turnout among the entire electorate. Based on the historic levels of voter registration among the young, we expected more from Generation Y.

When young Americans don’t vote, their interests are ignored; democracy decays and narrow sets of voters become kingmakers. Had the organizations which perennially promise to electrify young people with the wonder of the ballot box finally delivered, America might finally have paid attention to the interests of younger votes, such as the future of higher education and the national debt which older Americans will never live to repay. One can even fantasize that the youth would finally have meaningfully engaged in politics, preparing them to be the better citizens of tomorrow. Indeed, given that the 18-30 demographic seems to have favored Kerry to Bush 55 percent to 45 percent, younger voters could have swung the election merely by turning out in the same numbers as middle-aged Americans.

The issue is not simply youth apathy. Most youths who are away at college do not have the chance to go into a voting booth on Election Day. College students should never be disenfranchised by antiquated systems for obtaining and filling out absentee ballots. Absentee ballots are far more prevalent and easy to obtain than they have been in the past, but there is still much work to be done. Many students who duly registered and applied for ballots never got them, leaving them no way to exercise their democratic rights but a plane ticket home. Still more students were daunted from voting by the Byzantine application process.

To be satisfied merely with the availability of absentee balloting is to completely ignore how simple and self-explanatory some states have made the process. Students who think they were disenfranchised by an unfair or ill-designed system should ask their state to adopt the simpler, more efficient model of a state like California. A government premised on the rule of the people is made more legitimate by high voter turnout and especially high voter turnout across all slices of America. With a few simple changes, states could strengthen the democratic fiber of America by delivering the legitimacy the even slightly higher turnout would bring.

The candidates could also have done a better job in reaching out to younger voters. One important reason for youth to vote is so that politicians tailor their policies to youth, but those who would run the country should have the same interest states do in energizing the electorate. After a few exciting noises about higher education issues earlier in the campaign, youth issues drifted off the national radar screen entirely. If candidates talked more about the investments in the future that really matter to younger voters, they themselves would be investing in the strength of American democracy as it rolls on into the twenty-first century.