The percentage of eligible millennial voters who actually voted in the 2016 election went up by 5 points compared to the 2012 election, according to a Pew Research Center study on the subject. This probably sounds positive until looking at the big picture.
Millennials, or those aged 18 to 35 years-old as of the 2016 election, became the second biggest generation in the electorate with 62 million eligible voters, but only 51 percent of them voted.
That makes just over 30 million eligible voters that didn’t show up to the polls.
The nearly two years since the 2016 elections have seen countless national political protests and examples of grassroots activism.
These movements have seen widespread support among the younger generations, but to affect this November’s critically important round of midterm elections, more of us need to be registered and willing to vote.
National Voter Registration Day was Tuesday, but the deadline to register to vote in New York state is Oct. 12. You can register to vote online at www.elections.ny.gov.
If you are registered to vote at home, you don’t have to drive back home on election day. An absentee ballot for New York state can be found online at www.elections.ny.gov. Registration for an absentee ballot for the general election is Oct. 30.
If there is a time for millennials and Generation Z, many of whom have now turned 18, to push to have an effect on politics, it is now.
We have the power to shape this country in any way we want.
We just have to do it, because all of the hashtags in the world will mean nothing come November.
