Yep. It's not "young people don't vote," it's "each one of us, when we're young, is less likely to vote than we will be when we get older." And there are practical, structural reasons for that—things that we can change.
It's not that we don't know how to make it easier and more attractive for people to vote. It's that a lot of people in power—disproportionately, though not exclusively, Republicans—aren't interested in doing so.
Youth voter turnout is going to be higher this year than it is in most midterms, but it's not because old people have been yelling at young people to shame them for not voting.
And if we want structural, rather than transient, changes in voter turnout, we need to make structural changes to the way that voting operates.
Lower the voting age. Protect students' right to vote in their campus communities. Make voter registration automatic. Ban voter ID laws. All of these would facilitate youth voting, and increase turnout generally as well.
And all of these reforms are dependent on getting Republicans out of office and holding Democrats' feet to the fire. So let's do those things.
And I know I've said this before, but I'll say it again: 50-year-olds are more likely to vote than 40-year-olds, and 60-year-olds more likely to vote than 50-year-olds. If you're not in AARP, you're part of the youth voter turnout problem.
