There's a 26th Amendment?
How sad is it when America goes through the trouble of passing an amendment allowing 18 year olds to vote and the young citizens of America completely neglect that right? When I went to vote today for Governor of New Jersey I was welcomed to an empty room. Not one voter besides me not an adult or even one kid, and remember I live on a college campus. I did not go at some outrageous time, I went at 4:00 and I was all alone. After being there for around five minutes, while the kind old lady was continuously asking me how to say my last name (something I have become so accustomed to) another kid had walked into the room. I felt a sigh of a relief that there are some people who still feel they have a civic duty. Unfortunately for me and the rest of America he came up to ask if he was registered and of course to my despair he was not. After ten minutes I had finished voting and was still the only person in the room. I left feeling that we live in a country that is so terribly apathetic and any improvement is hopeless. Now I do know this is a fact when compared to most democratic countries, but seeing it first hand is just very saddening. Being young, I could only wish that all young people would vote, and since such a low amount of the youth votes, politicians completely overlook us when it comes to their campaigns. How great would it be for a politician to talk about lowering the cost of college instead of hearing about Social Security for hours. I am not saying that Social Security is not important, because it most definitely is but I would also like to hear about things appealing to my generation. Statistics have shown that once the amendment allowing 18 year olds to vote was passed the percentage of people voting dramatically decreased, and that percentage fails to improve. Politicians have no incentive to talk about the teenage generation, and why should they? The younger generations vote will be a minor dent in the final outcome. So kids, get off your MySpace, turn off your TV, and pause your video games for just 30 minutes and get out and perform your given right to vote. The more America votes, the more communitarian America will be.
posted by Jeff at 11:50 PM
3 Comments:
I had the same experience!!!! I went to vote at 8 am to "beat the crowd" (yeah, right) and was the ONLY person in there!!!
Jeff, if you ever run for office, I'll be on your campaign team, I like your ideas about lowering costs for college.
It's a sad thing indeed that people don't honor their privilage to vote in this country - but many of those people have no problems sitting around bitching about how "bad" things are.
I feel your pain Jeff. Although I experienced the opposite here in Colorado last week. We weren't up for a new governor like y'alls were, but a referendum to put excess tax monies back into schools, roads,etc. I live in a small town and I waited in line for 45 minutes to vote! The referendum passed.
Beat the drum, dear, beat the drum!
BTW, I get satellite TV from NY so I've seen and heard all the campaign ads y'alls had to suffer through during this race.
Oh yes, our governors race was ridiculous. It was hard to figure out what each candidate stood for because basically their campaign was to tarnish the image of their opposition in sleezy ways.
Post a Comment
<< Home