When did voting get written off in America? What happened to this country that the public is beaten down so hard that some people believe voting is pointless and refuse to leave the mall and the world of pop culture to make an important choice for the future?
Well, some of the people who don’t want everyone to vote have a stake in the outcome, like the late conservative activist Paul Weyrich who said in 1980 that he didn’t want everyone to vote.
“Elections are not won by a majority of people. They never have been from the beginning of our country, and they are not now. As a matter of fact our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down,” Weyrich said.
Weyrich was once the king of conservative think tanks, as he founded ALEC (American Legislative Exchange Council) and co-founded the Heritage Foundation, Moral Majority, Council for National Policy and Free Congress Foundation.
So in other words, Weyrich is very much okay with conservatives having a majority
rule but not when liberals are in charge of America.
Former ABC News correspondent John Stossel, who now works for the Fox Business Network, also doesn’t want everyone to vote, but he at least gave a better explanation than Weyrich.
“I hope that informed young people do vote. Voting is serious business. It works best when people educate themselves,” Stossel said.
Stossel has a valid point, but many people are wiser and have more enthusiasm about the issues in America, as well a sense of the vision for America, after leaving college and living in the real world for a few years.
Also keep in mind that not everyone under the age of 30 is into superficial entertainment,
and many of them do get involved in the process. They should be applauded for that and not mocked because of their age.
Vital parts of getting Americans to vote have included absentee ballots and early voting, which is something Gov. Rick Scott obviously missed by cutting the early voting days almost in half, from 14 to eight, which resulted in longer lines. He probably took a page from Weyrich’s book after his big win in the 2010 midterm election.
The long lines have to stop; the way voting is promoted in America also has to change
so that more of the well informed people get out and vote. Here’s a bit of advice for both parties: Don’t write people off because of their age or their political affiliation.
Voting should not just be reserved for one party or one group of people. This is the United States of America, not the United Elites of America.