Honolulu Star-Advertiser // Island Voices
April 3, 2019
The premise that, when it comes to politics, young people “just don’t care” ignores the many barriers we face when it comes to participating in democracy.
We struggle to juggle multiple jobs to make ends meet in a system of widening income inequality. We feel the pressure to earn a degree even as crushing student debt forever alters the cost-benefit of higher education. For some of us, the idea of starting a family seems out of reach as we take care of our aging parents. Finding the time to register to vote is one more chore in a day that leaves us with too little time for ourselves.
Young people who do attempt to participate in electoral politics are too often shut out, belittled and ignored. One cannot deride young people for “not caring” enough, and then tell them to be quiet when they speak up—or rather, raise the alarm about climate change and gun violence.
From the March for Our Lives to the widespread appeal of the Green New Deal, our willingness to mobilize is becoming harder and harder to ignore.
New data show that voting rates in the 2018 midterm elections for 18- to 29-year-olds increased in all of the 17 states studied by the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University. CIRCLE polling data showed that youths ages 18-24 who were actively involved with or agreed with the gun policy reform activism of the March for Our Lives were much more likely to have voted in the 2018 midterms.
For young people, and certainly here in Hawaiʻi, it is less about red versus blue and more about taking a bold stand to fight for our future. That’s why millennial Congressperson Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has captured the hearts of so many young people. And it is why U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein’s patronizing response to the very young and very articulate members of the Sunrise Movement asking for action on climate change was widely condemned.
Young people do care. We care about our future. We care about this planet. We care about each other.
Yet, we do not fully participate in our democracy for the most pedestrian of reasons. In 2012, the most common reason millennials cited for not voting was “not being registered.” Clearly, if young people are already registered, they will be much more likely to actually vote. That’s why we should support the idea of automatic voter registration (AVR) in Hawaiʻi. It is one step toward a technology-based, efficient and secure system that is consistent with what our digital generation expects and enjoys in many other aspects of our lives.
How do we know AVR works? Oregon expanded its voter roll by more than 200,000 after implementing AVR, and of that group of new voters, 67,902 of them—or 36 percent—took the next step of casting a ballot.
AVR—three letters that tell young voters that their voice matters. Millennials, and the oldest Gen Z members who are just now beginning to vote, represent the largest single voting bloc in the country. We have significant untapped political power. We need to take our seat at the table and address the damage that has been done to the planet. It’s time to expand access to democracy. Call your legislators and ask them to pass Senate Bill 412 and establish AVR in Hawaiʻi.
