Here are five reasons why we should get out and vote:
1. The youth vote is sadly underestimated by party analysts. Why? Because the sad reality is that percentage of eligible youths who actually register and vote is small when compared with other demographics. So, like any self-respecting rebellious young person, the natural thing to do is go against the grain and do the unexpected. Keep them on their toes, shock them on election day – get out and vote!
2. The biggest election issues often directly affect the youth. Education funding, both elementary and post-secondary, employment (or lack thereof) and job training programmes, violence, poverty and reproductive rights issues are just a few of the current hot topics that directly affect the quality of our life right now. Think about the future and the world you will one day inherit from the power generation. Don’t vote and you effectively kiss away your ability to have any influence as to how these issues play out in your world.
3. The only way democracy can work is if citizens, young and old, are active participants. A government by the people, for the people just can’t work without the people. Like a car without an engine, or a computer without a hard drive, a democracy without voters is just a shell and has no power. While it is easy to say “one vote doesn’t make a difference” the reality is that every vote counts. Also we have to remember that as an individual our vote may seem to be little more than a whisper but when your vote is combined with the votes of others who share your views it becomes a voice and the more like-voters there are the louder that voice grows.
4. If you don’t vote you really have no right to complain about government decisions you don’t like. If there is one thing that is really annoying to actual voters, it is the endless ramblings on the bad political policy of a current government spewing from the mouths of eligible voters who never bothered to cast a ballot. If you don’t vote it is like saying you don’t care how your country is run, so if you don’t care where do you get the idea that you can complain?
5. Bottom line: you should vote because you can. Voting is a tremendous gift. Believe it or not, young people just like us in other countries actually fight and even die for this right; a right that so many youth in democratic nations take for granted. We should vote because we can, if we don’t we may one day wake up in a country where we can’t. – info@youthforumzim.org; www.youthforumzim.org
Post published in: News