Young people need
an extra push to
cast a ballotMotivating youth could mean victory
for Lingle or CayetanoDuring the summer, my 18-year-old brother Jared said he was going to vote for Linda Lingle for governor because she had given him a hot dog and a soda.
Apparently the hot dog wasn't enough to get him to the polls. When I saw him after the primary, he was surprised that there had been an election and -- though I had reminded him repeatedly to register -- he still had no idea what he had to do to vote.
Jared is hardly an isolated case. Most young people I interviewed were totally unmotivated to vote and felt that candidates were doing little to get our attention. Those who do bother to vote often feel that it's a futile exercise.
When I asked a 21-year-old student whether he had voted in the primary election, he replied, "What election?" After learning it was the primary, he said, "Oh yeah, I gotta go do that. I don't even know if I'm registered."
When a voter registration drive came up in a discussion with a few University of Hawaii student journalists -- people who should follow the news more than most -- one asked why people had to register to vote. Another wanted to profile Jeremy Harris, apparently unaware that the Honolulu mayor isn't running this year.
I noticed a general sense of disillusionment with the two-party system among my peers. Graphic designer Dan Cameron, 26, said, "I'm very frustrated with the current system. I believe the two parties have been in control of the government for too long without any third party." When I pointed out that several other parties were on the ballot along with Democrats and Republicans, he said, "They don't count."
Mark Vega, 27, does support the other parties. "If I was going to vote it would be all Natural Law, all Green Party, all Libertarian," he said. However, although interested in several key issues in this year's election -- same-sex marriage, fiscal reform, the environment and a more balanced process of development -- Vega didn't vote in the primary.
Some of the younger voting-age population aren't interested enough to be disillusioned. Adam Brooks, who just turned 18, didn't vote in the primary because he wasn't old enough to register in time, but he doesn't intend to vote in the general election either. "I don't really care too much about politics," he said. According to Brooks, there's nothing that would have made him cast a ballot.
Mark Ka'ainoa, also 18, and Brooks' classmate at UH, could think of only one thing that would have made him vote: "Money. If they gave me money, I would have voted."
On the flip side, Tiffany Thurston and Jennifer Hasegawa, both 18, were happy to take advantage of their new right to vote and tried to make informed decisions.
Thurston made her choices according to the candidates' positions on gay issues, education and Hawaiian Homes. "Those are the only ones that really strike my attention," she said. Hasegawa, who said, "I'm usually more of a Democrat," voted for Lingle because she liked her performance as Maui's mayor. She also said she likes the idea of a governor with a woman's perspective.
Douglas Bwy, associate professor of political science at UH, said that young people's voting habits often correlate with what their parents and significant others demonstrate. "They tend to follow traditions that they've observed."
He said people who are educated about the candidates and issues are more likely to vote. "If younger people think about it, they'll be stimulated to vote more instead of less. (Education) empowers them. If they feel the power, they'll vote more."
He warned that people must "really read" before preparing to vote. "You have to look for contrary sources. You have to look at both sides of the issues," he said.
The only flaw I see in that thinking is the assumption that young people will motivate themselves to find the information. More likely, if candidates want the support of younger voters, the candidates are going to have to provide the motivation.
Among the people I talked to, the most important issues were the economy, education and the environment. These are key issues in every candidate's campaign, but campaign promises are aimed at older voters. Most young people don't care much about tax breaks for small business owners or incentives for big business. They want to be assured that they'll be able to make enough money here to eventually be able to be concerned with these things.
Also, although many young people said that they were concerned with education, they tended to refer to higher education rather than the K-12 that most politicians concentrate on. Because many young voters are not parents yet, they aren't interested in children's education as much as they are in the UH system. That's not to say that the candidates ignore the university. It's just that their promises tend to represent faculty interests rather than student interests. Students want to hear about things that will affect them, such as tuition and course offerings.
Most candidates don't give enough attention to the environment -- a potent issue among young voters.
In 1968, energized by the anti-war movement, so many young voters rallied behind Eugene McCarthy and Robert Kennedy that President Lyndon Johnson was forced out of the race. If Lingle or Cayetano could seriously mobilize young voters, it would probably be enough to turn the election.
That should provide candidates enough incentive to do more to court young voters. And it should provide young voters the incentive to turn this power to their advantage by making it to the polls.
Monday is
last day to registerWhat: Wikiwiki voter registration
Treena Shapiro is a senior at the University of Hawaii
and features editor of the student newspaper, Ka Leo O Hawaii.
