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If only the young people voted. The average age in most states is ~40, so the governments should not be completely ignoring the young.

• IIAOPSW 9y ago
  If only there were a politician that reflected the political interests of the under 40 demographic.
  • favorited 9y ago
    That won't happen until under 40s start voting. Politicians reflect the political interests of their voters.
    • IIAOPSW 9y ago
      That won't happen until Politicians start considering under 40s. People vote for those whom reflect their political interests.
      • landryraccoon 9y ago
        The problem with your position is that the politicians still win if under 40 doesn’t vote, but people under 40 lose. People under 40 hurt themselves, not politicians, by not voting. People in office already won office. Why would they be motivated to care to win people who won’t vote anyway? They clearly can get elected without them.
        • IIAOPSW 9y ago
          >Why would they be motivated to care to win people who won’t vote anyway? I'm saying the under 40s would vote if there was someone worth voting for. Doesn't vote != won't vote. Its a volcano waiting to erupt.
          • TheCoelacanth 9y ago
            > Doesn't vote != won't vote. It actually does mean that most of the time. The most reliable predictor of whether or not someone will vote is whether or not they voted in past elections.
            • IIAOPSW 9y ago
              But this logic is so circular. 1. build a policy set around people who voted last time. 2. only people who voted last time end up voting this time. 3. goto 1
          • landryraccoon 9y ago
            > Its a volcano waiting to erupt. It can't really wait that long, because the under 40s will be over 40 pretty soon, and then there will be a whole brand new set of young people that have never known politics. People act like "under 40" is some kind of static group. It's not, it's a totally different set of people every 20 years.
• minikites 9y ago
  The GOP makes it difficult to vote for anyone who isn't a landowning white person under the guise of protecting us from "voter fraud". They do this in a number of ways, including (but not limited to) under-staffing or eliminating polling locations in non-white areas and onerous address/residency restrictions (to exclude students, other young people just getting started, and migrant families). Many young people want to vote, but are discouraged or prevented from doing so.
  • seibelj 9y ago
    Is there any published research on polling locations correlated with race and income? Genuinely curious. It sounds plausible but I haven’t heard about that before.
  • favorited 9y ago
    It got much worse after SCOTUS invalidated portions of the VRA. States which previously needed federal approval to change voting procedures closed polling places on college campuses and drastically reduced early voting windows to make it more difficult for college students to vote. Some states (I know Texas and N.C. off the top of my head) don't allow student IDs to be used at the polls, either. Other states targeted minorities with similar tactics. Alabama (which needed federal sign-off on changes under the VRA) passed a voter ID law then closed 30-something DMVs across the state, almost exclusively in areas with huge black populations.