| 
| 
| |
| Enfranchising the Disenfranchised (Segal)The Challenge: (further) engage themselves in the electoral process. Important Progressive: accomplishing this challenge will contribute directly and specifically to the progressive values embodied by Roosevelt's Statement of Principles When only a handful of the population participates in its process, democracy loses some of its meaning. Young Americans, particularly students, comprise a significant portion of those sitting out Election Day, surrendering arguably their most important right as a citizen of this country. According to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Education, only 22% of voters ages 18-29 voted in 2006. There appears to have been two kinds of students who did not vote: those who were disenfranchised, and those who generally did not care enough to make it to the polls. To increase overall engagement, the challenge is to address both. Disenfranchised students are often the victims of flawed electoral policies, some of which we should aim to reform to allow more people to vote more easily. Policy reform geared towards simplifying voter registration, such as 1993's National Voter Registration Act, has been shown to improve turnout significantly. It should not be difficult to participate in the democratic process, and right now, too many unnecessary obstacles are preventing Americans from participating. The voices of students in this country largely go unheard. Working to engage students is an exercise in democracy and a challenge to those of us who consider ourselves engaged. We believe that it is not simple catch phrases and slogans that will motivate people to care, but rather the instilling of the sense that everybody has to have a stake in democracy for it to truly work. Innovative We're looking for policy challenges where innovation is needed: where there isn't already a clear solution or best practices, but solutions can be developed creatively. Our goal is to develop options, not to lobby or advocate for a solution that is already known or to debate among several yes or no outcomes or pre-defined policy choices. Other organizations do the important work of debating and lobbying, that's just not our place in the process. There is by no means a clear solution to getting young Americans more involved; the challenge is coming up with new ways to do so. There have been plenty of ideas developed in the past designed to get more young people to the polls, some having worked better than others, but none have worked well enough to ultimately be considered a success. That's because there is not one flawless way to get people to care about something they don't care about. It's a challenge to convince people why they should care, and we are committed to examine every possible way. Aside from advocating certain electoral policy reforms, which would be the most direct way of facilitating young voters, we should look at the general apathetic mindset young people seem to have with civic engagement, and come up with ways to change it. We should focus our efforts at the junior high, high school, and college levels to instill an ethic of lifelong civic engagement in students early on in their education. Rather than attempt to convince people to change their mindsets once they reach voting age, we should instill in them a civically engaged mindset from the beginning. Feasible Approachable: given the level of research and discourse already available and given who else is working on the issue, college students with a range of experience levels and with varied types of expertise can contribute meaningfully to the debate and are likely to think of good ideas. We don't want something so technical only engineering majors can contribute to it, or something that is already dominated by another think tank or advocacy organization. When it comes to voting reform, college students have the opportunity to be some of the most effective leaders. Some of the possible reforms, such as implementing a youth poll worker program on campus, or installing more voting machines to make lines shorter, need student involvement to make them happen. The ways students can get involved are simple ones, but they need to be made more easily available nonetheless. CommentsI like this idea a lot, and proposed my own on "Making Democracy Work". I think this idea would fall under the "Making Democracy Work", but that the one I proposed would be a little bit broader and could include things like campaign finance and international democracy promotion issues. I think the title proposed is clever, but also may be confusing or unclear for people who hear it off the bat. If we say we are working on "enfranchising the disenfranchised", I am concerned that will need more explanation than would otherwise be necessary with a title like "Making Democracy Work". SO OVERALL, I love this idea and want to see it move forward, but I think we can market it better by calling it "Making Democracy Work". I also think that a lot of this challenge, in contrast to (e.g.) <a href="http://rooseveltinstitution.org/challenges/41_voter_registration/">Nate's formulation</a> or something even broader, is not really public policy. I think it's great to register voters on campuses or develop tactics to do so but that's not really Roosevelt's strength and there are a lot of other groups doing that. |
The Roosevelt Institution is a nonpartisan, nonprofit national think tank devoted to bringing students' policy ideas to the policy process. The opinions expressed on this site are exclusively those of its members. DC Headquarters: Roosevelt Institution / 2100 M St NW Suite 610 / Washington, DC 20037 || (202) 833-1359 |