By International Standards, U.S. Voter Turnout is Low
American voter turnout typically isn’t much higher than 50%, significantly less than most developed countries. In a Pew Research Center study conducted in 2018 The United States scored 26th out of 35 ‘highly developed’ countries for voter participation.
In 2016 US voter turnout was 58.1%, down slightly from 2012 when 58.6% of eligible Americans voted. On average since 2000, roughly 54% of eligible voters actually cast a ballot in the U.S.. Imagine living in a country like Belgium, for example, where 87.2% voted in 2014? How would it change our lives if that many Americans voted?
How Can Americans Get Out The Vote?
First, Make a Plan to Vote Yourself:
- Make sure that you are registered to vote. Most states make it possible to register to vote when renewing a drivers license and all states have on-line instructions on deadlines and procedure for voter registration.
- Confirm your polling place and voter deadlines for early-voting and mail-in voting. This year, because of Coronavirus pandemic precautions, early-voting and mail-in voting options are being expanded throughout the country.
- Educate yourself on the candidates, from President down ballot in federal, state and municipality elections. With the Internet it’s easier than ever to research your candidates and be an informed voter.
- Make a plan for how and when you will vote and put it on your calendar so you don’t forget!
Axios published a handy guide for how to vote in all 50 states to get you started: https://www.axios.com/how-to-vote-by-state-2020-307c3d17-ee57-4a1b-8bad-182ca1cdb752.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axiosdeepdives&stream=top
Write Letters
Vote Forward is a national project that organizes volunteers to write letters to registered voters, targeting areas which are either traditionally under represented (with registered voters who don’t usually vote) and voters in swing districts who tend to lean Democrat.
Volunteers choose their campaign (there are currently a dozen campaigns to volunteer for in WI, TX, PA, OH, NE, FL and CO) and sign up to write 20 letters at a time. Volunteers are instructed not to promote or degrade any candidate by name, but to encourage voters to exercise their right to vote. I wrote 20 letters to TX voters and am now working on 20 letters to PA voters.
You need to have a home printer to print out the letters, fill them in with your personal message and provide the required envelopes and stamps. VoteForward is asking that all letters written by all volunteers around the country be mailed out at the same time, during the first week of October, on a day which hasn’t been announced yet.The above image is an example of one of my letters.
Write Postcards:
Postcards to Voters is a national project to write “friendly, handwritten reminders from volunteers to targeted voters giving Democrats a winning edge in close, key races coast to coast.” With a different strategy than Vote Forward, volunteers are asked to send their postcards
within 3 days of receiving addresses. After sending in an image of a sample postcard, volunteers are approved and sent a list of addresses for a particular district or county. Sentences and phrases are provided for each campaign (volunteers sign up for between 5 – 20 postcards at a time). Volunteers provide their own postcards and stamps. The above photo is an example of one of the postcards I’ve written.
It Feels Like we Need to Save our Democracy:
I understand that it’s easy to become disillusioned, but it’s hard for me not to believe that the more of us who vote the more of us will be represented by our government. ‘We the People’ only gets stronger the more ‘We’ are heard!
Obviously, there are more ways other than voting to participate in building the society we want for ourselves, our family and fellow citizens – it would be wonderful if more of us showed up at local city council meetings, more of us lobbied our local, regional and federal officials on issues that are important to us, more of us were informed of abuses overseas that affect all of us as a human family – by writing letters, calling our representatives and peacefully making our voices heard. But, if we inform ourselves on who’s running for office in our own country, up and down a ticket, and we make sure that our ballots are cast in every single election, that is a powerful first step to a real participatory civil society, a vibrant living democracy.
There are many more ways to encourage people to vote than listed here, but I wanted to share what I am doing in case you would also like to volunteer, and I wanted to use this small platform to encourage you to make sure that you vote this year. Whatever your politics, I hope that you take the time to be as informed as you can be, cast your ballot and make your voice heard.
Thank you for following the blog and please try to stay healthy!
