Thread by @abbysyarns

To everyone who's tsk'ing about all these youngsters today who aren't voting:

What happened when you asked them why they aren't?

Oh... you didn't ask them?

Well then what's your basis for judging them?

Let's have a thread, because I have asked this question.

"Do you have obstacles to voting? Let me know what they are and I'll tell you if I know answers."

I said that to one friend, and more have taken me up on it since.

It has forced me to confront the privilege I own in knowing how to be an informed voter.

I'm in my mid-40s, and the world has actually changed since I was in my late teens and voting for the first time.

The first election I voted in was 3 days after I moved. I probably would have failed to vote if my mother hadn't MADE me vote absentee.

So, how many parents of young voters, high school and college age, are making sure your kids know everything they need to?

If you're not, you own a share of the responsibility if they don't get it done.

Next up: when I was in my 20s and had shitty jobs, they were actually a lot less shitty than those same jobs are today, and a big reason: scheduling. Waiting tables, delivering pizza, you often don't get anything like the predictable schedules we had back in the 90s.

I know, I know, they seemed unpredictable then, but they're actually worse now, and it's not limited to a few shitty employers. It's the norm. People don't know if they're working until the morning they're working, and don't know their schedule a week out.

Lots of young folks are also working multiple of those jobs, and that means they're often exhausted, especially if also going to school.

So lots of 'em don't have the spoons to go learn how to research a ballot, how to process political ads, etc.

So that makes people feel less confident about how they'd even WANT to vote, if all the obstacles could be overcome.

The stakes are so high, lots of young folks don't want to fuck up, and it's paralyzing.

Transportation is a big deal. If you live rurally, you probably have neither public transit, nor rideshares like Lyft. If you're young, do you have a car, or do you need to borrow a parent's? Can you borrow a trumpist parent's car to go vote blue? Maybe.

Yes, there's early voting, absentee voting, all that stuff, but like, you still usually have to go find what you need in order to get that done. Like I said, I wouldn't have been able to, in my first election, if my mother hadn't made it happen.

Younger folks also are likely to move more often than older, more established folks. If you're not super into politics, you might easily forget to change your address, and then, you might not even know where the polling place you're supposed to use actually is located.

Also, early voting is usually at BOE headquarters instead of polling places. What happens when you don't know that, and use the time you carved out to go to the wrong place, for example?

Lastly for now, have you thought about how hard it is to come forward and say "So, I need some education about voting, and some help figuring this out?"

I don't know that I'd go ask the folks who come across as very vote-shamey for that help.

Anyway, to sum up: why not ask the folks you know if they're voting, and if not, why not? Why not ask what help they need to get it done? Your discoveries will doubtless be unique, but you will also, I'm sure, find plenty of people who really want that help -- and couldn't ask.