Happening here in NZ too. Personally I'm very fortunate that I live in the area few people want to be. So the house prices aren't ludicrious like they are up in Auckland; but still - with major organizations in my city 'restructuring' or outright shutting up shop (my role is currently in the firing line), it's hard to stay positive about the future. In the article they touch on the left-leaning and Gen-X demographics having poor voter turn out. Does anyone have an insight into why this is? Is there a chance for making voting mandatory in the States or would that just not be feasible? Australia pulls it off but a country with the population of the States sounds like it would be a logistical nightmare, let alone trying to enforce it.
Poor voter turnout amongst the youth in the United States is caused by several factors: 1) Voting does not happen on a holiday. If you can't get off work and if you can't get someone to watch your kids, you aren't going to vote. Early and absentee voting is possible in 34 of 50 states, but a surprising percentage of the population can't get their shit together. 2) Cynicism and discouragement reduce turnout. The electoral college system makes it so that there's a real sense one person's vote doesn't matter. That candidates will visit every.single.fucking.mailstop in swing states while utterly bypassing, oh, California (where more than 10% of the population of the United States lives) doesn't help - especially when 325 voters in Florida held more sway than California in 2000 and that Clinton won the popular vote by more than the population of both Dakotas and Montana combined but still lost the election. That these voters can affect local politics hardly matters because local politics have much less impact than national politics. 3) Old people have nothing better to do. It's easy to have civic engagement when it's the only fucking thing you have going on. A comprehensive voter rights bill would go a long goddamn way but in the current climate, Kris Kobach is a potential cabinet secretary so it's going to be a while before we can get our heads out of our asses.
Isn't the House no longer actually proportioned sensibly? I thought I read California should have way more House members than they do if the old rules were still in place. Gerrymandering doesn't help with the cynicism either. And I really don't like voting for fucking county school board members and judges I know nothing about. I'm above-average informed and it's a depressing thought to know you're going to have to go into a booth and likely vote for people you know nothing about. Sometimes I just skip those votes. It's a system unintentionally in some ways designed to lower turnout. I voted in 2016 in part because there was a liquor store across from the polling place. I also voted really early and was in rehab by the time the general election was held. I knew it wouldn't do shit because of the county I lived in but I voted for Hilary anyone. Read into the first sentence whatever you want based on the details of the third sentence. All that said, I'm doing my homework come November and where exactly I vote may end up being something of a multiple choice because I'm registered in a county I don't live in and may not live where I do now when the election happens.
They reapportion the House every census. This is the reason the Trump administration is fucking with the census. It allows them to further push things towards privileged midwestern white people. There's an easy solution to not being educated about school board members. Look 'em up. I would say it takes my wife and I about two hours to get voting done... but we do it over wine, in the living room, laptops flying, figuring out our positions as we go (we occasionally quibble over some minor position or other).
And this is what I was referring to about apportionment. http://history.house.gov/Historical-Highlights/1901-1950/The-Permanent-Apportionment-Act-of-1929/
The one thing I'd add into that mix is 4) Voter supression. I've been scrubbed from the roles before, and found out about on election day. It sucks. If I had been on the edge about voting because of (2), that experience probably would have been enough to push me over.