Stalking the wily Millennials, part deux...
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Last week, Dave wrote about how the number of 18-24-year-old voters who took part in last November's election was still below the turnout of older voters, despite all of the hype about how the "Obama factor" was going to up young voter turnout. I wanted to hear from a "Millennial" about why fewer of them vote compared to Boomers and seniors and what can be done to get more of them to participate. So I checked in with my niece, Carlyn, who is a first-year vet school student at WSU. (BTW, Carlyn assured me that she voted.) Here is Carlyn's take:
I'm really surprised to hear that the number of voters in my age group didn't increase much. I think one of the biggest problems facing my age group is that we don't really have anyone holding us accountable if we vote. Since most people my age are out of the house, many of us don't have parents bugging us, asking, "Did you remember to vote?" I think that if maybe they did voting rallies, where people could drop off their absentee ballots, the numbers might improve. Say maybe each city or county or whatever has each Tuesday evening in the three weeks prior to election dedicated to getting people out to vote and it was well-publicized, that might help. It's hard to say though. My friends and I were all stoked about the election, as were most people on the campus. It's hard to say where those non-voters are...
What do you think? Would more get-out-the-vote rallies result in a larger turnout of young voters? Should parents call or text their college-age kids and nag them about voting? Do you have other good ideas on how we can raise the Millenial voters' turnout? We're listening...
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Secretary of State
Steve Hobbs
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