An article on vote is must to protect the democracy?
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Donald Trump winning the presidency — I feel kind of responsible for that,” said Ashenafi Hagezom, a 27-year-old from Las Vegas who hasn’t voted in any election since becoming eligible nine years ago. Not in 2012, when young and minority voters — Mr. Hagezom’s parents are Ethiopian immigrants — showed up in record numbers to re-elect President Barack Obama. Not in 2014, when not so many showed up, and Republicans took back the Senate. And not in 2016, when Mr. Trump won the White House on a platform of white grievance and anti-immigrant spite.
That last one still stings, and it inspired Mr. Hagezom to participate in this year’s midterms. “I think I may have been registered before,” he said. “Honestly, I’m not too sure. But this is my first time actually paying attention, knowing the candidates. Doing my job as a citizen.”
Mr. Hagezom’s day job is at a Hudson News in McCarran Airport, but since May he has been on paid leave thanks to his union, the Culinary Workers Local 226, which has 57,000 members and has assembled a remarkable turnout operation in and around Las Vegas. Mr. Hagezom is one of about 250 union members canvassing for votes six days a week, knocking on doors and urging voters to the polls. The stakes couldn’t be much higher: The outcome of the extremely tight Nevada Senate race, between the Republican, Dean Heller, and the Democrat, Jacky Rosen, will be crucial in deciding which party controls the Senate.
With Election Day around the corner, Mr. Hagezom’s transformation — from nonvoter to voter — serves as a useful lesson about the dangers of political disengagement in America, where voter turnout consistently ranks near the bottom of turnout in modern democracies.
Early voting data from Nevada to Texas to North Carolina to Maine show that Americans are voting at unusually high rates for a midterm election. But those rates are still far below what they ought to be.
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Answer:
Vote to make difference!!!
A senior political figure who shall remain nameless, but is currently mayor of London, once told me that on the final day of general election campaigning he had just enough time left to visit one of two places: a students’ hall of residence or an old people’s home. He chose the old people’s home.
The calculation was clear: it was in the old people’s home that he stood the better chance of meeting actual voters. To his credit, he knew something drastic needed to be done about this, but it was a sad acknowledgement that in politics the young are nowhere near the front of the queue.
Around 75% of people aged 65 and over will vote in this election; unless something thunderously radical happens in the next six weeks, only around 42% of 18- to 24-year-olds will do the same. The over-65s coming out to vote and the under-24s staying in has been the norm for the past few decades. This is why we’re now all hearing so much about the pros and cons of the triple lock on pensions, but absolutely nothing about student fees and housing benefit.
The older electorate has become an effective voting lobby, more powerful than the gas industry. Because the over-65s turn out in such large numbers, every politician needs to court them and doesn’t want to utter a single word that will alienate them or drive any of them to political opponents.
Why can’t it be like this for 18- to 24-year-olds? If they registered and voted in force, they would become powerfully unignorable. I admit that “Powerfully Unignorable” is not a great campaign slogan, but it’s much better than “Mostly Forgotten”.
Of course, a lot of young voters choose not to vote because they’ve been put off by what’s on offer. When the prime minister asks to consult the electorate but refuses to be consulted by it in televised debates, what’s the point of joining the discussion? When parties steal each other’s tactics and policies – Labour going all out for Brexit, the Tories pinching old Ed Miliband policies such as caps on energy bills, and the Lib Dems, the party of coalition, declare they will not do coalitions, then it’s easy to wail, “they’re all as bad as each other” and stay indoors.
But there’s idealism in this too. It’s about keeping democracy healthy. If we don’t participate in democracy, we won’t have much of a democracy left in which to participate. The truly wasted vote is the one that isn’t cast.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not ignoring the fat sheaf of opinion polls predicting a huge Conservative majority. But it makes me all the more determined to point out to voters the many ways a vote can still be used effectively.
Although we were all mostly appalled by Donald Trump’s victory, there is some consolation that he has the courts and Congress placing checks and balances on him. In Britain, we don’t have these restraints. Total power resides with the prime minister. The bigger the majority, the more unchecked her (or his) sway across health, education, taxation, benefits, and indeed all legislation, not just Brexit negotiations.
And it is possible to act to stop that majority from growing, if that’s what most concerns you
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