I don't agree with you being downvoted here...take another issue that is disproportionately effecting the young: Student Loans.

Every year more than 1M people default on their student loans, ruining their credit and essentially their lives.

Currently this is a voting block of 8M people and it will continue to grow by 1M every year. There is one candidate who has promised to forgive all student loans, and yet the person won't garner anywhere close to 8M votes.

There is a coordinated effort to indebt young people with loans they will spend the next 40-50 years of their life paying. Their degrees won't even pay for themselves as evidence by the fact these young people who historically could at least move out and begin their lives are no longer able to afford to do so...and when these issues are mentioned people are silenced (or downvoted into the grey so their comments can't be read).

There is more to this than young people don't vote, especially where they have every reason.

Only 18% of the population live in swing states though. Assuming an even distribution, that's < 1.5 million votes.

I think that is a fair point (although certainly we wouldn't find even distribution of these people across the States, but I can't provide the statistical breakdown).

However, 8 Million is the potential voting block of people who have already defaulted on their student loans...there are a total of 44.7 Million people with student loans who all would be interested and benefit from loan forgiveness/abatement. To put those numbers in perspective it it just exceeds the number of elderly voters on Medicare (44 Million).

There are still many issues to vote on.

Also, if you live on a red state vote for a moderate. Try to influence the primaries.

I don't think you'll find much sympathy for those who take out college loans beyond what their future occupation will realistically support in a forum like this.

People of all ages have always been too busy working and generally trying to survive. That's a wretched excuse for not exercising your franchise and worthy of the contempt that gets piled on whiny entitled people that expect some kind of trophy just for showing up at the polls.

> People of all ages have always been too busy working and generally trying to survive.

Traditionally older people tend to have (or have had) more set schedules/defined work hours, more benefits (paid time off), and better job security in general. I'm not saying it's impossible for kids today to vote, but there are some disturbing trends in employment and the way workers are treated that I can see making it harder than it's been for previous generations.

Previous generations were able to support themselves at least enough to move out of their parent's homes. Young adults today are clearly struggling in ways that past generations haven't had to and that's going to strain how much time and effort they can spend on local and state politics.

Of course none of that addresses the larger issues like voter disenfranchisement and gerrymandering which limit the impact of voters making the effort seem less worthwhile.

I still think young people should do everything the can to get involved and vote, but I'm not going to pretend that any mention of their struggles can be dismissed by calling them "whiny entitled people"

Maybe we should make election day a national holiday.

This is an inaccurate assessment, even in states like WA where all voting is done by mail and you have few weeks to actually do it, young people don't vote as much.

Young people’s brains have a lot going on and it’s hard to prioritize. Old folks already had their learning experiences of forgetting to vote or seeing the repercussions of not voting. No one is at fault per se and this is just a natural reflection of how people learn over time.

I happened to turn 18 right in time to vote in a [US] presidential election year. I've made a point to vote in every election I can from that point on.

Did I have "a lot going on"? Sure. Do I have utter faith in "The Government" and//or "The Voting Process"? Not really.

But I still vote. It's my right and also, as I've come to see it, my duty. Free speech or no, I believe that if I want to complain about an election and be taken seriously I should participate in it at at least the bare minimal active level.

My strong belief is that the PRIVILEGE to 'complain' (I usually use a different word) about the outcome depends on exercising the RIGHT to vote.

I've always made time to vote, and at least read the voter's pamphlet if not also further sources to attempt to make that vote an informed one.

I'm curious: what other word do you use?

Asking for a thesaurus.

I’ve voted in every election since turning 18.

Like the parent comment said, there is a noticeable difference even in states like Washington. We have close to two weeks to fill out the ballots and mail it back or drop it off. There is a huge difference between "having a lot going on" and "procrastinating for two weeks". the ballots take ~5 minutes to fill out, and ~10 minutes to drop off.

"The young people are often too busy working and generally trying to survive"

I find this a very questionable statement. Most middle age people are working 40+ hours, on top of devoting hours to kids, maintenance etc. They are every bit as busy as young people, if not more so.

Politicians respond to only 2 things, votes and lobbyist dollars. If people want to make a change and have politicians stop ignoring them then they need to establish themselves as a reliable voting block. Until they do this they are just shouting into the wind / twitter / reddit / facebook.

Voting by absentee ballot takes minutes, everyone who want to has time for that.

IIRC the options to absentee / vote by mail has been growing dramatically.

When I moved to Washington [state] I was amazed that I could vote by mail -- and by default, too.

Since moving to California after that, I've voted by mail as much as possible, and I literally live right next door to my polling station; I see it and their parking spots right out my bedrooms' windows every day.

Young people have as much or more time than other groups.

Seniors have time but have trouble getting to the pols.

Middle age - Are working/picking up kids but still find time.

I think younger people see through the effectiveness of voting. If I do vote my vote seems to really not matter. If all young people vote as a block maybe an issue will be mentioned or moved towards something I like. But the effort / reward doesn't add up when the election is decided in the mid-west and the election is called before my vote is even records as a California resident.

It seems crazy that you are given two choices that basically blame each for everything gone wrong or take credit for everything positive but do the same thing when given the chance.

Liking a photo is so much more rewarding and feels like more of a direct impact.

> I think younger people see through the effectiveness of voting. If I do vote my vote seems to really not matter.

As long as young people keep thinking like that, and old people don't, old people will keep winning elections.

> If all young people vote as a block maybe an issue will be mentioned or moved towards something I like. But the effort / reward doesn't add up when the election is decided in the mid-west and the election is called before my vote is even records as a California resident.

State and local elections matter too.

How many elections have you voted in or been eligible to vote in where a single vote being added or removed would have changed the outcome? Zero? Cool, me too.

Voting is not economically rational if it takes more than zero time, given those odds.

When so many people beat the drum of economic rationality, is it a surprise people don't vote? At most one of "economic rationality is valid" or "you should vote" is a true statement. When we're told that the former is true, we're being told not to vote.

There are modifications of "rationality" that actually provide a justification for voting. But you'll never see an economist acknowledge that superrationality is a thing, for instance.

Voting is a civic duty for a functional democracy. I don't understand the rampant defeatism I see in the "deliberate nonvoting" bloc, but the outcome seems obvious enough.

> How many elections have you voted in or been eligible to vote in where a single vote being added or removed would have changed the outcome? Zero? Cool, me too.

Is a thing only worth doing if you can cast yourself as the lone hero who turned the tide?

This seems like the Tragedy of the Commons. You fish in a stream, because why not? One person can never eat enough fish to make a dent in the population. Then a thousand of your neighbors fish the same stream. Soon it's completely depopulated, and there are no more fish for anyone, and everyone involved can still say "it wasn't my fault, my impact was barely noticeable."

Either it's nobody's fault, just a totally unavoidable act of God, or it's everybody's fault, and you all should have worked together to address it. Only one of those ways of thinking will get anything done.

> How many elections have you voted in or been eligible to vote in where a single vote being added or removed would have changed the outcome? Zero? Cool, me too.

So if you aren't the one, single deciding vote it's not worthwhile? That's an immature approach. All the more immature because you go on to couch it in rhetoric about economics and "rationality" that amounts to nothing more than third rate sophistry.

You're not a taxi cab that has to be in service 24 hours a day to maximize utilization. You're a person with responsibilities. Your "economic rationality" is just a lazy justification for only doing what you feel like doing ("provides marginal value!") and never doing anything you don't.

If you're going to be a bum, be honest with yourself and those around you.

I have voted in every election I could since I turned 18.

In one of those elections, my preferred candidate won by a mere 129 votes out of 2.8 million votes cast:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2004_Washington_gubernatorial_...

If you don't vote, you won't be able to tell if your vote "really mattered" in an election until it's too late to do anything.

Make voting day a holiday. Or just do it on Sundays like many countries do.