(MENAFN- AzerNews) By
CIRCLE, the Center for Information and Research on Civic
Learning & Engagement, a non-partisan, independent research
organization focused on youth civic engagement in the United
States. estimates that 27 percent of youth (ages 18-29) cast a
ballot in 2022, making this the midterm election with the
second-highest youth voter turnout in almost three decades.
James Gao, a student of Duke University told that young people don't feel enough
motivation to go voting.
“I think it's just harder for people to realize what's
happening. They see the signs on the side of the street for the
candidates, but they don't really know who the candidates are or
what they stand for. Unlike the presidential elections, where
there's so much coverage of who's running, it might be hard for you
to realize that you know, someone is running in your state or in
your local area. And when most people who don't pay attention to
politics that closely, don't really recognize what's happening,
then they don't feel a strong motivation to go out and vote or to
volunteer. What we're seeing is that whether it's on Tik Tok or
Snapchat, or traditional forms of media, it's easier than before,
to kind of get access to the type of political information, you
might need to make an informed vote. But I think the issue is
really making sure that people connect with politics, and they
understand exactly what the implications are for their lives and
for their communities. And I think that both politicians and media
still need to do a little bit of work explaining that to young
voters,” he said.
Gao believes that if young people would be more active in this
elections, the Democratic Party would be in a lot stronger position
than it is right now.
“I don't know the specific numbers. But I'm pretty sure that
young voters break very heavily for the Democrats and for liberal
causes. And what we've seen over the past two years is that the
Democratic Party is more diverse. It has a bigger coalition of
people from a wide range of different identities and backgrounds.
And I think that the Republican Party represents predominantly
white, predominantly Christian, kind of way of American life that
is fading. And that is one that young people don't necessarily, you
know, identify with, because they're more diverse,” said the
student.
He said he is absolutely not satisfied with the young people
representation in the power.
“I think that there's still a long way to go. One of my friends
mentioned that we have the first generation Z member of Congress,
who was elected yesterday. And that's obviously a great start. But
again, we don't turn out to vote enough for the size of our
demographic within America. And that means that we need to continue
nominating candidates, we need to continue advocating and
mobilizing and organizing around candidates to make sure that we're
getting further than just, you know, one person at a time because
if we all turned out to vote, we could have a really formidable
voice both on the national and the local level. And I don't think
we're there yet,” added Gao.
Another student Jaquell Sneed said there is wisdom that comes
with being in office for a certain amount of time.
“It is great that we have some folks who are a bit on the older
side and have been in the in politics and in leadership for quite a
bit of time. However, it's much too skewed, we don't have enough
new voices, we don't have enough representation across
generations.
We have a population that is younger, it's continuing to get
younger. And so if we are not matching that with representation in
government, we are putting ourselves at a disadvantage of not truly
representing the public that we claim to represent. So I definitely
think it's a huge issue. There aren't enough pipeline programs to
get younger folks engaged. Just because someone is younger does not
mean they're representing the values and ideologies of their peers.
And so I think that if we were engaging people early on making sure
that people are informed earlier on and have the opportunities to
step into leadership locally, regionally, then we would have a
better opportunity to actually recruit in and promote into
leadership millennials, and even some Gen Z so that we have more
representation,” she added.
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