The 2008 election is coming up and the candidates are campaigning like crazy. In the past couple of decades, the lowest voter turnout was in the 18-25 category. A campaign known as Rock the Vote tries to get the youth of America to go out and vote so they can be heard by their fellow candidates. Rock the Vote is a non-profit organization that was founded in 1990. Celebrities like Brittany Murphy and bands like Against Me!, All Time Low, and The Donnas get involved and try to persuade and get kids to go out and register to vote. They feel that if we really wanted to make or see a change in the future, we really need to go out and do something about it. They encourage young adults to think about the issues affecting us, for example, the War in Iraq. In the past election in 2004, the voter turnout for 18-25 year olds was at 47% which is a greater increase from the voter turnout in 2000 which was 37%. Still, the 18-25 age range had always ended up having the lowest number of votes compared to the 55-74 year olds who had the highest voter turnout at 73%.
Why do you think that is? What's the reason or explanation behind the youth of America having the lowest voter turnout? Are we just too busy or are we making excuses? Do the celebrity endorsements work and persuade the youth to vote? Will it increase the voter turnout in the 2008 election significantly? Will the youth vote ever reach as high as the older vote? If you do vote, why? If you don’t vote, why not?
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3 comments:
For me, even if I do vote, I still have an underlying feeling that my vote does not matter and the government is going to go ahead and do what they want to do anyway. There are individuals who mutually share this feeling but, unlike me, they don’t go to the polls.
Voting seems to be a coming of age thing. Establishing yourself in American society during the 18-25 age range gives you time to become privy to what’s going on in the “adult” society and gives you ground to express your opinion.
I think celebrity endorsements can motivate people to vote, but do we really want a large group of individuals, who wouldn’t have voted in the first place, voting just to vote because Brittney Spears says it’s cool to do it? I’ve noticed Obama has been making appeals to the younger generation of voters with his endorsement music videos and quirky slogans mainly appealing to the emotions rather than logic. It makes me angry. I don’t have anything against him as a candidate, but I do not like the way he’s using pop music to influence the youth. Pied Piper!
I don't think that celebrities have a direct influence on younger voters. I, myself, fall into that 18-25 year old range. When I see my favorite celebrities working to persuade more people to vote, I just think, "Oh, hey, they're doing something good." I'm not going to jump up and get out there to vote because Alex from All Time Low says I should.
What I believe the be the reason that the younger age group has a low percentage of voters is because they just don't care. They probably don't think that voting effects them. They care more about graduating from school than social security right now (55-74 yer olds?).
Celebrity endorsements aren't a bad thing (why else would advertisements and commercials have them?). They are effective in some way but maybe campaigns are just not using them correctly when it comes to voting to increase the percentage of younger voters. Maybe instead of telling the younger age group to vote celebs should tell them why they should vote and how voting can and will effect them.
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