On Thursday, November 10, 2005, at 11:25 AM, Leurquin, Ronald wrote:
What I wonder is what is the reason so many people are not voting. I hear a lot of opinions on why, and god only knows I have my own ideas and opinions.
I think voters do not vote because they do not have sufficient motivation to do so. I would not call that apathy. I would not give it any sort of label. I really like the Kid Vote idea. My grandchildren voted Tuesday and got up at 6 am to get ready to be there when the polls opened. They were excited. Of course I had taken them on lit drops and they did their part in asking people to come out and vote in the primary and general election.
I've spoken to perhaps hundreds of people who got sort of vague when I asked them if they planned on voting this year. I did my best to give great reasons for voting and I'm sure I succeeded with some. But with some, I could still see a hesitancy after we talked. It is not a lack of concern about who gets elected. It isn't fear, either.
I'd guess that for some they live in a world of too many choices to make. Time for them is a shrinking commodity. For some reason that we do not know, voting drops down the priority list in their crowded lives. I think the challenge is to raise that civic duty on the priority list, but do so without blaming. The more we blame, the more some of these will retreat into their independence to exercise an option.
I really like education. I really like letting younger people vote. Start upstream and work hard on that. If I could clone the excitement of my granddaughters who practically could not sleep because Tuesday was voting day, we would have a great future voter population.
What we are up against is the great middle - those demographic numbers that tell us fewer are voting each election cycle. And as we know, motivating adults is much more challenging than motivating children and youth. In that regard, I congratulate IndianVote, that increased the American Indian vote by a million nationwide. There are models. It can be done, but it is one voter at a time.
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