The last midterm election saw record low voter turnout across the United States. Turnout in 2014 was the lowest it’s been since 1942, with not even half of the nation’s registered voters going to the polls, according to the United States Election Project run by University of Florida political scientist Michael McDonald.
This time, organizations across Wisconsin and Milwaukee are pushing young people to get informed and get involved so that their voices are heard.
‘If Anyone Is Going to Do Anything About It, It’s Gotta Be Us.’
Students at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and members of the Milwaukee community say depressed turnout may have something to do with the actual process of voting and the lack of knowledge about how to vote.
One UWM student determined to spread the word is Chris Kresser, chapter chair of UWM College Democrats.
Kresser started at UWM with a major in Graphic Design, but switched to Political Science after seeing things happening in politics that he didn’t like. The election of Donald Trump pushed him to get into politics to do something more.
A die-hard Bernie Sanders supporter, evident by the large sticker of a smiling Bernie adjacent to an evil Trump sticker on his laptop, Kresser says that he got involved in politics because of the values he learned from Sanders.
UWM College Democrats meet every other week to do three things: review statewide events, bring in speakers and review internship opportunities. With the midterms coming up, the group is enthusiastic about informing people about the election.
At one of the meetings, exactly three weeks before the election, seven group members sit with piles of Milwaukee residents’ names and phone numbers. The room is silent except for the dull dial tone on several different phones. The phone bank, says Kresser, will help inform people that the midterm election is next month.
Each member wields a script they read to those who pick up, starting with a greeting followed by, “I am a volunteer for the Tammy Baldwin campaign in the Milwaukee area, how are you doing tonight?”
Some people hang up, some say it’s a wrong number and a rare few stay on the line long enough to hear about what they can do to help Baldwin’s campaign.
After an hour of calling, the group gets four people who put their names down as interested in volunteering.
The goal of these phone banks is to get the word out about the election and get callers to join them in future phone banks and canvassing across Milwaukee.
Kresser says that these are the types of events that not only young people, but everyone needs to take part in.
“It’s not like people our age don’t want to get involved in politics, it’s just that they need to be shown the opportunity that it’s there,” said Kresser.
Kresser also said that the importance of voting is falling on young people if they want to see a change in the country.
“The baby boomers are all getting older and eventually they will pass. But we have another 80 years left and we’re going to inherit a lot of the problems from past generations. So if anyone is going to do anything about it, it’s gotta be us.”
According to the Wisconsin Election Commission, of the over 3 million people registered to vote in Wisconsin, only about 223,000 are between the ages of 18 and 24. This number is small, considering young voters, who are part of the millennialgeneration, are estimated to be over 83 million strong, according to the United States Census Bureau.
In the 2014 midterm election, about 10 million young Americans, or 21.5 percent, voted, according to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. In the same election, these voters ages 18 to 29 voted more Democratic than Republican, with 54 percent voting Democratic and 43 percent voting Republican.
What may be surprising is that the 2014 turnout of 21.5 percent of American youth is typical for midterm elections, despite the belief that young people aren’t voting.
The question is, why aren’t more young people voting?
Kresser says it may be because of strict voting laws, which make it harder and more intimidating for young people to vote.
A University of Wisconsin-Madison study by Political Science professor Kenneth Mayer showed that strict voter ID laws in Wisconsin affected voter turnout in Milwaukee and Dane counties in the 2016 presidential election.
In the two counties, over 16,000 people deterred from voting and over 9,000 were prevented from voting because of the ID law.
“Voting laws need to be a lot more open. Make polling places more known. The biggest thing is information and knowing all the different ways someone can vote,” said Kresser.
UWM sophomore Emma Fath says that young people may not be showing up at the polls because they don’t think their voice matters.
“A lot of people that I know feel like they aren’t being heard, so then they feel like if they’re voices aren’t being heard, then why go out and try and vote?” she said.
Fath says her high school teachers as well as her parents impacted her decision to be involved in politics. Fath’s mother received a “wake up call” after the 2016 election and it prompted her to push Emma to get involved.
Fath says she’s hopeful of a strong voter turnout for young people this election.
“I think a lot of people are realizing where we’re heading and a lot of people who didn’t vote in the past election are actually getting more active,” she says.
Unlike Kresser and Fath, UWM sophomore Samantha Heinitz doesn’t share an interest in politics.
Without her parents pressuring her to vote, Heinitz said she would have skipped the primary election in August.
“I wouldn’t have voted if my dad hadn’t dragged me out of bed to go do it. I follow politics as closely as I can but most of it is obnoxious and nowadays so I try not to get too involved,” said Heinitz.
But this doesn’t mean that Heinitz thinks the election is unimportant. She says that although it’s a frustrating process and is hard to follow most times, as she has gotten older she has seen how important it is to stay educated on government politics.
Getting Milwaukee Involved
Organizations across the Milwaukee area are also reaching out to make people aware of the election.
Black Leader Organizing for Communities, or BLOC, works to get Milwaukee communities that are often neglected involved by working with local politicians to allow the black people of Milwaukee to have their voices heard and allow them to thrive.
Canvassers who work with BLOC are also young voters, some starting at eighteen and going into their twenties, while some of the others go into their forties.
BLOC executive director Angela Lang says that she sees an increase in voter turnout in both young people and young people of color for the upcoming election.
“We’re starting to see more of an enthusiasm and people are starting to understand the power that they have. I am very confident that we will see an increase in young people and people of color, specifically youth of color,” said Lang.
To encourage voting and to make it easier for people to get to the polls, early voting sites have opened around Milwaukee, with one on the UWM campus. At the Zelazo Center across from the Student Union, early voting began on October 15 and runs until November 4 for Milwaukee residents.