Millennials: Do Us All a Favor and Vote!

By Ejaz S. Haque (Age 22)

(2015 graduate of chemical engineering -
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign)

Fall is in full swing. If you have been anywhere near a television over the last few months, you are aware that election coverage has arrived. For those of you ages 18 to 21, you may have been looking forward to this time of the year for months; after all, 2016 marks the first time in your lives you will be able to participate in a presidential election, one of the most important rights afforded to you by American law.

Statistically, however, it is much more likely that you are indifferent to this new power and have no plans of putting it to use at all.

Or don’t, but at least now you have the choice.

Such a sweeping generalization may justifiably raise some eyebrows among discerning readers, as to some it may seem as though younger generations are more active in politics than ever before. Even if this were the case, the truth is that there is still much progress to be made according to voting and registration data obtained by the United States Census Bureau. Of the 5146 Americans aged 18 to 24 polled just last year, more than half (2924) reported that they did not vote in the November 2014 election. Extrapolating this data to a nationwide scale (and, yes, arguably taking some statistical liberty in doing so), this means that the number of young adults that could be expected not to vote in the upcoming election is approximately 3 million – in other words, enough people to swing the outcome of the 2004 presidential election.

And we wonder why we don’t feel represented enough in national politics.

This calculation fails to account for those who did not respond regarding their registration status, meaning it is likely that the reality is even worse than it seems. Despite government approval reaching all-time lows in recent years, the numbers show that we as a demographic are not yet incensed enough to take meaningful action. In addition to the sheer abstruseness of today’s political discourse, the corruption and often-spotty personal and professional histories of major party candidates explains to some extent why many see the election process as a farce. “Why even bother voting when every candidate sucks?” or “what’s the point when they can just buy their way into office anyway?” one might ask.

The answer is simple and we've all heard it before: your vote is your voice. Yet the polls show that many continue to question whether or not their single vote is truly impactful. Sure, non-voters may have been able to swing the 2004 election, but only in one of the closest presidential races of all time, and only if they had voted unanimously in favor of the Democratic Party. With such conditions being quite rare and nearly impossible to replicate, our ballots can feel meaningless, lost in the vast sea of votes that ultimately do nothing to dictate the outcome of large-scale elections. However, the misguidedness of this perspective has been illustrated numerous times by the profound yet undeniable impact Millennials make on a national level.

We may not be as good as we think we are, but we’re not as bad as others think either.

Among the biggest news stories of 2012 was the shooting of Florida teen Trayvon Martin. The mass media coverage, prosecution, and subsequent acquittal of shooter George Zimmerman contributed to making the event one of the most important social justice struggles of the decade. Yet without the contributions of young adults across the nation, it could have remained a local story, swept under the rug and forgotten within weeks.

In the aftermath of the shooting, Washington D.C. resident Kevin Cunningham, unsatisfied with the leniency of Sanford police on Zimmerman, took to online petition platform change.org to call for Zimmerman’s arrest. Within days, the petition had made waves through social media, accumulating thousands of signatures. Soon after control of the petition was transferred to Martin’s parents, the “Justice for Trayvon” campaign had developed into a full-scale protest movement. National media coverage was heightened in response, pressuring police to finally arrest and persecute Zimmerman, leading to the long-awaited trial many thought would be impossible given the strong pushback from self-defense apologists. Though Zimmerman was eventually acquitted, the impact of the internet and social media on the resolution of the case cannot be denied. The change.org campaign was fueled solely by action from its backers and gained national recognition due to its overwhelming support. Had these backers (hundreds of thousands of whom were among the 18 to 24 age bracket) instead failed to take action as they did in the 2014 elections, the prospect of prosecuting Zimmerman may have been dead on arrival.

 

It’s hard for anyone to ignore 2.3 million messages in their inbox.

This is not to say that all (or even most) Trayvon supporters abstained from voting, nor does it prove the value of the individual ballot. However, it is a clear demonstration of the power of the internet and the collective interests of the young adults that dominate the platform.

Why is it that current presidential candidates seem lacking in many respects to the younger generations? Superficiality, partisan agendas, flip-flopping, and many other qualities contribute to the disconnect between older politicians and younger constituents. And yet, if we are aware that these problems exist, why do they continue to plague elections at all levels, year in and year out? Voter apathy catalyzes this self-fulfilling prophecy: if young adults have no interest in voting, candidates are no longer motivated to adopt policies that favor young adults, giving them no reason to vote in the first place.

The solution to this problem is easier said than implemented. Campaigns such as ‘Rock the Vote’ and ‘Bite the Ballot’ have the right intentions, but how many of us have really fostered a vested interest in politics since learning about them? Advertising is rarely effective in swaying any demographic in taking notice and performing deeper research on their own, as pro-voting campaigns inherently do. An audience that is initially resistant to listening will be much less likely to internalize a message than one that came looking on its own. The key to breaking this cycle is to work with young voters on their own territory and as the Trayvon Martin case shows, the internet and social media are ideally suited platforms to do this.

When former backup center and certified scrub Hasheem Thabeet
has 4 times as many followers as you, you aren’t getting the job done.

Transparency between government officials, the media, and the public is greater than ever – or at least has the potential to be – due to the open nature of the internet. Though their use of designated social media representatives raises questions concerning their candidness, politicians have nevertheless made a great leap forward in public relations by embracing these platforms. From Barack Obama’s digital town hall meeting on Reddit’s AMA forum to the use of Twitter as a channel of direct contact with constituents, it is clear that social media is the most powerful medium of communication between the electorate and the candidates.

           

 

Barack Obama’s AMA is the 19^th most popular post on Reddit of all time.

Young adults do care!

The benefit of this model for American citizens is that direct communication begets direct accountability. Imagine that the 18 to 24 year olds who did not vote in the 2014 elections were all dedicated followers of presidential hopeful Donald Trump on Twitter. Real-time updates make it easy for followers to keep up-to-date on Trump-related events and any changes in his politics. Imagine now that at a rally next week, Trump rescinded his proposal for government spending reform and decreased taxation on the middle class. You would expect his followers, college students or recent graduates that would benefit from this plan, to be outraged.

This kind of flip-flopping has almost become commonplace as candidates take advantage of the difficulty in keeping track of every promise made over the course of a presidential campaign. However, due to the nature of social media and cloud-based platforms, identifying this behavior is so simple that hypocrisy is now called out on a daily basis. Even without abandoning his promises, Trump could receive backlash from his followers for adopting new policies that support older citizens (e.g., social security) at the expense of younger ones. Whereas politicians have commonly justified tailoring their campaigns exclusively to the desires of an older crowd, a politically-active millennial generation could easily pressure them into giving more consideration to a wider audience. Given that our earlier estimate of the number of 18 to 24 year olds in this country approximates the population of Iowa, this demographic would certainly carry weight.

It is important to remember, however, that all of the above is contingent upon an internal desire to take action. Voting campaigns may motivate kids to start thinking about the idea of voting, but it is on the individuals themselves to perform research and cultivate an interest on their own. The tools we have before us in the internet and social media should convince us that we can make a difference, and a big one at that in the upcoming election. There can be no excuse for not voicing our opinions. It is when we are dissatisfied with the status quo that we must take action the most; failing to do so only serves to perpetuate it. Whenever you feel like your vote means nothing in the face of a government that wields more power than you ever could, remember that your vote is the ultimate check on every politician that represents you, a check they have no ability to dispute. When we millennials truly appreciate this – when we no longer ask “should I bother using this power?” and instead ask “how can I best put it to use?” – we can shape the political landscape in ways no expert can foresee.