Now that we have had a week to process the midterm elections, we should recognize the massive steps forward in democratic participation across the country.
This year’s midterms had the highest turnout for a non-presidential election in more than a century. The United States Election Project estimated a voter turnout of just under 116 million, about 49 percent of the voter-eligible section of the population. The 2014 midterms saw only 37 percent of eligible voters going to the polls. Those numbers are a far cry from the more than 60 percent turnout in the 2016 election, but midterms always draw less interest. Regardless, the country as a whole proved to be reinvested in the democratic process.
It seemed as if every single state had a polling location that suffered from lack of registration cards or lines that ran for literal hours. A number of polling locations in Georgia and elsewhere had issues with tidal waves of voters and struggled to supply and process the turnout.
One of the biggest drivers behind that growth is the ascendance of young voters. While people in the 18-29 age bracket have failed to make their voices heard before, early statistics indicate an ensconced generation that is bucking trends.
Texas, as a whole, reported a 14 percent bump in voting with 46 percent of eligible citizens voting in the midterms, and early indications point to young people voting a full five times as often as they did in the 2014 midterms. A similar increase has been forecasted in Georgia, where a hotly-contested gubernatorial race brought a 476 percent increase in voter turnout from 19-28 year-old voters. Those numbers also carry with them the added qualifier of widespread voter suppression in the state and mishandling of mail-in ballots.
The spike in voting persisted in Idaho, where absentee ballot totals neared those from the 2012 presidential election.
Jonah Baker | Argonaut
As long as you haven’t taken a social media sabbatical following the 2016 presidential election, you should be somewhat aware of the growing pressure to vote permeating on social media. In 2016, it was the worldwide celebrities we know so well that invaded our timelines to push us to the polls, but a more organic approach took root much more successfully this time around.
For many people like myself, it has been the people within our generation that drove the younger crowd to the polls. An equal number of teenage political activists, like Emma Gonzalez and viral personalities like Demetrius Harmon, made voting not only cool, but connected to our identity as the generation to affect change.
In spite of the gains made in this one election, there are still many issues to address in future elections.
Multiple states are still under suspicion for selling voter info as recently as this year on the dark web. More than 10,000 potential voters in Kansas City were sent incorrect absentee ballot mailers, and hundreds of absentee ballots in Georgia are currently in limbo due to signature-related issues.
We should consider ourselves lucky to live in Idaho, a state that has some of the friendliest policies for voters in the United States. Our state is one of only fifteen (along with the District of Columbia) that allow for same-day registration, meaning that citizens have every convenience available to them when it comes to voting in person. The removal of the Kibbie Dome as a polling place was an unfortunate development, but efforts from ASUI and the relative accessibility of the Latah County Fairgrounds polling place all but ensured that all students who wanted to vote, could vote.
Of course, maintaining the momentum going forward will be the next big challenge, but our generation has overcome plenty of doubt in the recent past. There is an undeniable correlation between participation in government and the success of that government over the years, and our nation began to prove that it can actually be invested in its own well-being.
Jonah Baker can be reached at [email protected] or on Twitter @jonahpbaker