I'm going to come out and say it right now: It's not an inherit flaw in the minds of our generation that tells us to vote less than our elders. It's not that we don't care about politics, or that we are unpatriotic. The problem is that in the scandal-ridden, controversy-filled, and entertainment-fueled political system we participate in, we are so over-exposed to information from all directions that it becomes work to keep on top of politics.
With hundreds of new stories every day, how do we know what is true or false? Is that source biased? Where did it originate? Too many questions, too much information, too much work.
The same scandals/controversies have gone on for centuries: Bush and wiretapping, Clinton wiener-sliding with Monica Lewinski, LBJ starting the Vietnam War with the Gulf of Tonkin incident, all the way back to the days of Thomas Jefferson and John Adams. The list of conspiracy theories and scandals could go on, and on, and on, and on, (and on). Every president pushes to \clean up Washington"", and it has never happened, so why exactly is this 2008 election any different?
One might ask, ""But if everything has been the same, why is there lower voter turnout now than ever?"" It's because of exposure and awareness. We have the Internet, we have blogs, we have cell phones, we have text messaging, we have close to instant access to information on any issue, at any moment. It's so easy to obtain information nowadays that my generation more than ever before is on top of scandal, controversy and greed.
It does not help, of course, that this is what the media loves to tell us about, but that's almost completely understood and accepted today. This current campaign is a perfect example. Every day through completely different sources, it seems there is new ""evidence"" denouncing the opposition. I'd wager that my generation knows more about the political and personal history of McCain and Obama than any other candidate in elections previous.
I was done with this election months ago. I grow tired of surfing the web with the assault of absolutely outrageous headlines, like ""McCain fudges his Navy record!"" or ""CNN compares Barak Obama to Mahmoud Ahmidenjad by his clothing!"" For every point the Republicans have about the Democrats, or vice versa, each party can use the same statistics-stretching and manipulating them and turning them toward the aggressors.
Anybody who watched the vice presidential debate between Palin and Biden certainly knows this. How often did Biden or Palin regurgitate records and statistics about how one program leads to the creation (or destruction) of thousands of jobs? Elections are a war of statistics, voting records, personal histories and scandal, and we are more aware now than ever before.
If I have the choice of digging deep to see if McCain really did fudge his Navy record and playing Guitar Hero, I'm going to pick Guitar Hero. What new information will the Obama camp release tomorrow about the number of houses McCain owns? Does it really matter? And why were we bombarded with news about Obama's bowling game? Sure anybody could beat that score but I highly doubt the decision to wage war on a foreign country would rest solely on one's bowling skills.
This is the central problem facing my generation when voting. We are privileged to have at our disposal unlimited sources of information, but with so much of it being told to us from many different directions, and with much of it irrelevant in the end, it becomes actual work to stay on top of politics and elections. Do I, let alone most people, want to sift through hundreds of stories a day to find what is false and what is true? I certainly don't, especially when I have classes every day, or when you work from nine to five. When the voting day comes around, politics will be the very last thing I actually want on my mind after a year of the same old politics.
So what's the solution? Everyone is going to say incentives, and to an extent I agree. But it doesn't matter what you give to the gen X-er, whether it's a free pizza or a blowjob. The polls would be absolutely packed if the latter were given, but what does it really mean? Those previous non-voters are now voting for a blowjob. He doesn't know, let alone care about, what he's doing. He only cares about his happy ending. How does that contribute any positive affect towards the economic, political or societal landscape?
Offering incentives is the same as an uninformed vote which fails to contribute to society altogether. The only way to get people to vote is to assure them their vote does matter. And the only step in the right direction that I see as plausible is adjusting the electoral votes to be proportional, rather than winner- take-all.
With the winner-take-all system of the Electoral College, statistically a good portion of us won't have our needs and wants represented in proportion to how many people voted for them, so why bother? If 51 percent of people vote for McCain in Wisconsin, and 49 percent for Obama, does the first receiving all of the state's electoral votes really seem fair or representative of what Wisconsin folk demand? The winner-take-all system, combined with the consistent corruption in Washington, tells me not to vote.
I'm not lazy, apathetic or unpatriotic. I'm a realist, that's all. Is that really such a crime? Wouldn't you feel better and be more inclined to vote if you knew your vote actually did matter? If any random state had 10 electoral votes that were distributed
proportionally to the percentage vote each candidate received, then your vote would matter. It's a step towards a more representative Presidential election, and a step towards making your vote count every time, regardless of if your candidate wins or loses.
Mike Clutterbuck
UW-Madison sophomore
economics major
