I remember when the 2016 Election came around my senior year of high school, I watched my friends register to vote and cast their ballots. I knew friends who voted for Hillary Clinton, friends who voted for Donald Trump, and friends who voted third party because they thought that any option was better than the two I just listed. I was seventeen at the time, on the younger spectrum of the grade, and I was not old enough to cast my own vote. I relied on my friends and peers around me to vote for the best candidate because the fate of our country was in their hands, not in mine.
One night recently, I texted many fellow members of Generation Z who I knew would be comfortable answering these three questions regarding the 2016 election:
1. Did you vote?
2. How did you vote OR if you could have voted. who would you have voted for?
3. If you made the decision not to vote or vote third party, why did you?
I surveyed eighteen individuals who are from and are presently in a number of different states across the U.S., who are of different ages, genders, educational backgrounds, etc. and in terms of results, just in my circle of friends alone, there were 10 who would have voted for or did cast their ballots for Hillary Clinton, 6 for Trump, and 2 for a third party candidate. Reasons for voting or not voting ranged from individuals being too young to vote, not knowing where to go or how to register, wanting one in office over the other because they viewed the other as radical or unethical,l or the individual didn’t know who out of the two were the lesser of two evils. Out of the sixteen Gen Z’s I surveyed, two of these individuals actually cast a ballot in the election. For whatever reason, 16 people I associate with did not exercise their right to vote.
Now, this is just a small number in a pool of individuals who voted or did not vote. However, these individuals are going to be the ones going to the polls this November. These are the voices that weren’t or couldn’t be heard in 2016. Now is the time to register to vote. Now is the time to search up “Vote Save America” and register, or alternatively find out if you are already registered. Now is the time to contact your college’s political science department who will help you register to vote. Now is the time to register online. Now is the time to post about voting on social media. Now is the time to influence your friends and peers to vote. Now is the time to register to vote for the state of Maine or your home state. Our voices NEED to be heard, we are the ones who can force those around us to hear them.
To put our votes into context, as soon as Donald Trump was elected our president, article upon article came out about two important groups of people who could have made a difference if they had voted in larger numbers, the millennials and the youth vote. Generation Z was categorized under the umbrella of millennials because no party singled out the youth demographic. I remember seeing article upon article about how America’s youth had decided on Hillary Clinton as president and generally, how the election could have turned out differently had more millennials and more youth voters gone to the polls. Generation Z only compromised 19% of the total voter turnout, casting nearly 300,000 votes across all 50 states. As large as that number seems, we NEED to do better, it is 2018 and there are so many more of us who hold the right to vote and are now of age.
Now the takeaway from this goes further than our political parties. It is about the voice of the youth in our country, and the power those voices hold. Our voices are enough to choose a president. Read that again. Our votes that we cast together in November are strong enough and loud enough to determine a presidency, to dictate what party is in control and to make physical change that will impact us as adults. This change can only happen if young people start casting their ballots.
Generation Z, we NEED to vote this November!