This blog post was written by Donna Seymour for our 2018 PowHer The Vote campaign.
What are the issues that are (and should be) motivating young women to register to vote? Let us count some ways!
Elections are decided by the people who show up to vote. The current crop of politicians at every level – local, state and federal – is in power because the people who showed up to vote the last time around made those choices. If you don’t like the decisions they are making for you right now, register to vote and show up at the polls on November 6.
The political landscape in 2018 has been transformed by the #MeToo movement. Countless new-to-politics candidates have stepped forward. Many of them are openly talking about personally painful experiences and refusing to go along to get along any longer. The current debate in the US Senate over the nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court of the United States is a microcosm of how much hasn’t changed in the Senate. Many of the same men who refused to listen to Anita Hill a generation ago are still in power. Until the US Senate looks like the American people, that won’t change. Your vote this November is a step in the right direction.
Among the new candidates who have emerged in 2018 are people who understand they have something to lose if they forego political power. We’ve seen a surge by the powerless – women, minorities and LGBTQ candidates – running for political office in 2018. Will they all win? No, but if you don’t run, you can’t win. And if you don’t vote, you can’t ensure these people with new ideas and fresh enthusiasm for governing get a chance to open doors for people long-denied representation.
An enduring issue for women of all ages is reproductive health care. Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, which is under attack at the federal level in Congress, women finally have a level playing field when it came to health care in terms of access, doing away with gender-based pricing, and access to contraception. All that equity and progress is at risk by the current Administration and Congress. Here in New York State we have some additional protections, but the ground is still boggy.
Young women in particular disapprove of recent Trump Administration rollbacks to contraception coverage. The best way to make that disapproval known is in the voting booth come November.
Where you live very much determines how you live and what access to care you receive. Worth noting is Wall Street Journal-NBC polling on abortion access. Voters are now more likely to vote for a political candidate who is pro-abortion rights than for one who opposes them. Especially dramatic change was recorded by the poll among independent voters, 76% of who said they opposed reversing the ruling, up from 64% who were opposed to its reversal in 2013.
In particular this year, who gets elected to the New York State Senate will determine if New York modernizes its pre-Roe V. Wade law to conform to current federal statue, putting it under Health law, where it properly belongs. Passage of the Reproductive Health Act has been held up in the state Senate for years now.
Mother Nature doesn’t get a vote – but you do, if the environment and climate change are important to you. One in every 10 voters cares about these issues and 80% of millennial voters (who will be the largest block of voters IF they exercise their political power at the polls) believe that climate change is no longer a threat to our future but is a present danger. They do not deny the evidence-based reality of their own eyes. How many of our current politicians can say the same?
Somewhere between 10 and 15 million environmental voters decide to stay home every election. The results of those choices have haunted us for the last two years, as decisions continue to be made to roll back environmental protections that have been in place since the 1970s. If you like dirty air, polluted water, and shrinking bio-diversity, you can choose to stay home in 2018. Or you can show up to vote and speak for all living creature that don’t have a voice.
Many young people have been motivated to register to vote because of the gun violence they see in their public schools and colleges. Politicians have done little to challenge the power of the gun lobby to effect common-sense, reasonable gun laws and to look at gun violence as the public health crises it is. You can make a difference at the polls if you care about this issue by electing leaders who prioritize public safety and are willing to stand up to the NRA.
Rejecting party politics doesn’t mean you’re not political. There isn’t much about either major political party in the country that attracts young voters (or many of the rest of us either, anymore). In fact blank or unaffiliated voters in New York continue to gain ground in enrollment. The only thing being an unaffiliated voter means is you can’t vote in a NYS primary, which isn’t much of loss, given the byzantine voting rules still in place in this state.
If you care about modernizing and reforming New York’s electoral rules, voting in 2018 is important. Changes in who we send to Albany will give the forces of electoral reform additional voices in 2019. We won’t get early voting, expanded voting days, same-day registration, or the other election reforms that are driving up voter participation in other states if we send the same politicians back to Albany who have blocked those reforms in the past.
Elections are decided by the people who show up and vote. When you don’t show up, someone else is making critical decisions for you. Going along for the ride means you are often being taken for one.