You have probably heard this time and time again in your classes, but it is important to note: millennials have the lowest voter turnout of any age group. Although we officially make up 31 percent of the electorate, we are underrepresented in every branch of government because we don’t turn out. This is not about stickers or appeasing your professors or playing into a flawed system–it’s so much more than that. Voting ensures that your individual voice is heard. Yet, so many millenials do not turn out to the polls.
Don’t get me wrong, a lot of people do have very valid reasons to feel discouraged from voting. People who are in poverty are often disenfranchised from voting; they are hindered by voter ID laws or they don’t own a car and can’t get to the polls. Some people can’t afford childcare or can’t get time off work to stand in line to cast their vote. These are problems that stretch across generations, but many millennials, especially college students, may face the issue of not getting time off of school to vote or not having a car to get to the polls. I have good news for those students: Winthrop University is taking steps to make the voting process easier for students. There are no classes on election day (Tuesday, Nov. 6–take a break from reading this article and mark it in your calendars!) and Winthrop will drive students in the York county area to the polls. For those students who don’t live close enough to their hometown and need to vote absentee, Winthrop also has an absentee ballot drop off box in Digs where they will put postage on and mail out your absentee ballot for free.
With all of those technical difficulties out of the way, I know a lot of students on this campus still won’t vote because they don’t think their vote matters or they think that the system is corrupt. Many millenials feel like their causes aren’t being well represented in any branch of government, so they chose to not vote into a system that they feel does not serve them.
But get this, the government doesn’t serve you if you don’t serve the government. Politicians are just that, politicians. They have dedicated their lives to serving in public office and would like to keep their jobs and their livelihoods, so they do what they can to achieve this. The best way to make sure that you are voted back into office is to make sure that you are pleasing voters. If you don’t vote, nobody is going to work hard to serve your interests because it will not affect their political career either way. If millenials started coming out in massive numbers, government officials would have to serve the interest of these young adults because if not, they would lose their position. According to Pew Research, millennials now make up the same percent of the electorate as baby boomers, yet older generations vote much more than us. That’s because older generations learned a lesson that we have yet to learn: the easiest way to create change in your community is by voting. Vote out the state legislature who is not serving your interests and vote in the one who is. The more millenials that come out to vote, the less our governmental system relies on big money and older adults to choose who is running our country. We can make the next steps to fixing the corruption in our government. We can have our voices heard. We can make this country our own.
Voter registration deadline has been extended to Oct. 17. Absentee ballot applications are due on Nov. 2. Election day is Nov. 6.
