NEWS AND VIEWS: Getting out the youth vote (10/29/00)

NEWS AND VIEWS

Getting out the youth vote

The article below was circulated by the National Fraternal Congress of America to publications of NFCA member-societies.

Youth of America arise!

That cry is not coming from people on the fringes of society, but from thoughtful, concerned people interested in the future of our country.

An interesting phenomenon has occurred over the past years. Young people have become disenchanted with politics to the extent that they are not registering to vote when reaching the age to do so.

On the other hand, youth have shown dramatic increase in helping others on a one-to-one basis through volunteering.

This was summed up by the 24-year-old nephew of the Republican presidential candidate. "I know we are not an apathetic generation," George P. Bush wrote in a recent Newsweek magazine. "We just need the inspiration to help shape what our country's future will look like."

The Associated Press reported, that Karenna Gore Schiff, daughter of the Democratic presidential contender, said of her generation that, "for all our creativity and enterprise, too many of us look at the ballot box and say, 'Whatever.' But Generation X does care deeply about our country."

Voter registration among young adults has been dropping since the early 1970s, when the voting age was lowered from 21 to 18.

"Young people are, to a certain degree, into doing their own things. They see politics as being disconnected from their lives," said David Bositis, a political analyst at the Joint Centers on Political and Economic Studies in Washington.

When the Cuyahoga (Ohio) County Board of Elections and the area League of Women Voters polled local registered voters between the ages of 18 and 24, it found that 39 percent of respondents did not vote because they say they were never taught how.

The Medill News Service reported that "Today, 29 years after the United States enacted the 26th Amendment lowering the voting age to 18, young Americans are avoiding the ballot box."

Not all young voters are turned off. Matt Landry, a 19-year-old from Attleboro, Mass., who is president of the Student Government Association at New York's Hofstra University, said he believes voting provides young people with an opportunity to influence the political process. "Everyone needs to vote," Mr. Landry, told the Medill News Service.

"People fought and died for the right to vote," Landry said. "Even if I hate the two candidates, I'll still do it."

Yolanda Blair, a senior at The Blake School, in Minneapolis, wrote in that city's Star Tribune: "Young Minnesotans could make a big difference in this fall's (2000) presidential election - if they show up to vote."

"Leaders of three of the state's political parties agree that 18- to 25-year-olds - roughly 10 percent of the state's population - could influence the outcome of the presidential contest," she underscored.

"But even in the 1998 gubernatorial election (won by Jesse Ventura), when Minnesotas's young voter turnout was the country's highest, only 11 percent of eligible young voters went to the polls," said Mike Erlandson, chairman of the state's DFL Party. "By comparison, the overall turnout in the state was 60 percent."

The sheer numbers of the 18-to-24 group - about 50 million in the nation - make them a potential electoral mother-lode, wrote Neil Irwin in The Christian Science Monitor.

David Larson of Minneapolis, president of the National Fraternal Congress of America, noted that "the seeming apathy of new potential voters provides an opportunity to make a dramatic difference for fraternalists in America by taking the lead in encouraging their young people to exercise their voting franchise."

Chiming in, Mike Stivoric of Milwaukee and chairman of the NFCA Marshal Program, called on every fraternalist in the United States who is in the baby boomer generation and above to take some time with those under 25 to stress the importance of young fraternalists voting in the November 2000 elections.

Mr. Stivoric, a national fraternal leader who encourages governmental involvement by members of fraternal benefit societies, declared that "if older adults contributed a few minutes to this subject with younger adults, the results could help put a new group of voters at the forefront of influencing our nation's public policy."

| Home Page |