I have been posting on Facebook to get people to vote (specifically young people since statistically they/we don’t tend to vote in mid-term elections). I am trying to use hope, excitement, fear, shame, and sheer repetition to motivate as many people as possible. I am trying very hard not to say “vote only for the candidate I support!!” because that isn’t my point. If there was a 95% turn out of eligible voters and the candidate I don’t like wins – fine, apparently I’m in a minority and maybe I need to listen a little harder and figure out why all those people believe what they believe. That isn’t what happens though!
2010: the last midterm election only 40%* of eligible Georgia voters turned out to vote (this is under the national of 43.1% total which is still shameful!). This literally does mean a minority is influencing the politics that applies to all of us. I’ve seen statistics saying there are upwards of 80 million eligible “Millennial” voters. Just to put this in perspective, in the 1990 census the boomers had 76 million** (when they were 26-44 years old). And yes, I am nerd enough to go look this stuff up.
So the Millennial vote could make a huge difference. I personally like the idea of taking the voting day as a national holiday. This should just be an expectation! Not “are you going to go vote?” but “when are heading down to the polls?” Looking at the some of the data *** something happened between the 1960s and now… voter turnout is at an all-time low. And just think how much we could do if all the Millennials turned out to vote.
You can vote early in Georgia – so if you are worried about work (totally different rant!) go early! (http://sos.ga.gov/elections/countycontacts/advancevotingdisplay.aspx)
Let me say again – I don’t care WHO you end up voting for (ok! I do care! I think I’m right!). But if you make an informed choice (really, do your research!) and you show up to vote – you deserve every inch of your citizenship and I will defend your right to disagree with me to my last breath! What are you waiting for? Go look up where you need to go and GO VOTE!
* Pew Statistics – I have too much fun with the visualizations of the data Pew collected on voting.
**http://www.census.gov/population/censusdata/cph-l-160h.txt – report on housing focusing on baby boomers from the 1990 census data.
***http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0781453.html – interesting chart of voter turnout
Dream by Day 