Think your vote doesn’t matter? Well, not exactly
When I asked my classmate if he planned to vote in the U.S. presidential election, he responded with, “The election? There’s no point in voting, especially in California.”
He’s not the only one who thinks so. In a primary, some young voters consider their contribution to be somewhat irrelevant, since there is no partisan competition or historic state-specific party loyalty. But in the general election — in which whole parties tend to win whole states — young voters whose affiliations align with the favored party tend to consider their vote less effective or meaningful. And wrongfully so.
The millennial vote is one of the most highly analyzed and valuable blocs in the country because of its power in numbers and impressionability. And yet, millennial issues are rarely a central piece of any campaign. To be sure, fervent millennial support is an incredible boost to any campaign, and young voters tend to remain loyal to a candidate once they’ve committed. But achieving that commitment is so difficult — and millennial turnout is so unreliable — that mainstream politics has learned not to bother. Through decades-long legacies of voter apathy paired with the willingness to turn out for issues other than our own, we have taught modern politicians that, not only can our vote not be counted on, but our vote also does not depend on offering us anything we really want. So, with the 2016 presidential election close at hand, the millennial bloc is left with one stark reality; it is absolutely necessary that voters under 30, particularly students at colleges and universities, turn out this year — not only for the protection of our rights and the achievement of our interests, but also to reverse the notion that our voices as citizens are less important and less valuable than those of others.
To be fair, campaign strategists and political consultants aren’t entirely wrong in their dismissal of millennial issues — voter turnout among young people has been historically low. We don’t care, they say; especially now, in a world in which millennial interests are so easily circumscribed by technology, we are supposedly even less interested in politics. Some claim that we don’t understand elections, that they don’t matter to us, that we don’t read the paper and on Election Day, that we’re in the same place we’d be any other day — that is, not at the booths.
Elections are a science, after all. There is no point for campaign consultants, public relations experts or career politicians to spend their time on issues that matter to a constituency that won’t reward them with the vote. Young voters seem to think that if they don’t vote — especially if voting blue in a blue state or red in a red state — their candidate won’t notice. But to millennials, the reality is that if you don’t vote, your candidate won’t notice you.
Postmodern politics are littered with shining examples, if one cares to look — the cost of higher education has been climbing momentously for over 40 years and bringing down the price has only been a serious part of the executive agenda since Barack Obama’s run in 2008.
Young voters surged to support the President’s first bid for the Oval Office and again to spearhead his second term. Subsequently, pieces of the executive agenda became geared much more toward millennial issues. Voting is, by definition, the clearest form of representation — but it can also serve as an avenue to demand representation. For millennial needs to reach the agenda of the next president, college voters must continue and increase political involvement.
Luckily for us, the momentum from Obama’s era has manifested into the coming election; Wednesday night, Bernie Sanders of Vermont saw his first primary victory at 60 percent, beating Hillary Clinton by a 22-point margin. Eighty percent of his New Hampshire support base was under the age of 30. Clinton, by contrast, had the support of only 14 percent. True to the trend, the disparity in youth support is reflected in their platforms: Sanders supports free college tuition, more aggressively pursues economic equality and champions accessible health care — all especially relevant issues to voters under 30. By contrast, Clinton’s platform is much more focused on middle-aged and senior voters; she has proposed funding for Alzheimer’s research, expansion of disability rights, affordable health care and promises union support.
California might go blue regardless of whether a Democratic millennial chooses to show up on Election Day, but the role of millennial-voter issues for a future Democratic president’s agenda will depend on young voter turnout this year.
After decades of voter apathy, we’ve been able to turn it around. Let’s continue it for a third and fourth election and beyond — until our issues are considered platform-worthy national concerns instead of campaign-speech fodder.
Lily Vaughan is a freshman majoring in history and political science. Her column, “Playing Politics,” runs Fridays.