breathtakingly expensive libel settlement<\/a> after being caught knowingly spreading false stories about, wait for it, election machinery.<\/p>\nAnd politicians of both sides (mostly Republicans but, yes, following the 2004 election, Democrats as well) have argued against certified election results.<\/p>\n
In other words, Sanchez and most other first- and second-time voters have come of age being given every reason to believe that elections are lame and voting is a fool\u2019s errand.<\/p>\n
Yet\u2026<\/p>\n
\u201cI vote because my parents can\u2019t,\u201d said Annabelle Santos, who said her parents are green card holders from the Philippines.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m a history major. And one of the things I\u2019m studying is what it\u2019s like in countries when people can\u2019t vote,\u201d said another new voter, James, who declined to let me use his last name.<\/p>\n
Even James\u2019 desire for anonymity carried political overtones.<\/p>\n
\u201cI live in a house with a bunch of guys who don\u2019t agree with my politics,\u201d he said. \u201cThey probably aren\u2019t going to vote this cycle, and I\u2019m not positive that they\u2019re still into the stuff they used to be into (politically speaking). But they really don\u2019t like how I think, politically, and I\u2019d rather not deal with their drama.\u201d<\/p>\n
At least one young voter, Alex, who also said he didn\u2019t want to divulge his last name, said if younger people are finding value in voting, it might be precisely because the process has been trashed as much as it has by their elders.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think people my age are getting used to the idea of making do with less, and with figuring out how to turn old stuff into something good or cool. Voting is sort of like that, I think, only it\u2019s more important.\u201d<\/p>\n
Indeed, his \u201cVote or Die\u201d T-shirt suggested at least somebody thinks the stakes are high.<\/p>\n
Another student said she\u2019s voting because it\u2019s one of the few things in her life that isn\u2019t observed by a camera or tracked on a computer or otherwise monitored.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s something you can do that can\u2019t be controlled or bought,\u201d said second-time voter Katrina Choy.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like telling a secret.\u201d<\/p>\n
A few young voters told me democracy exists because of sacrifice. But none mentioned the American Revolution or World War II or the Civil Rights era. Instead, they talked about activists who protested at Tiananmen Square in 1989 and Hungarian voters who ousted Viktor Orb\u00e1n\u00a0earlier this year, and Brazilians who backed the 80-something lefty, Lula (Luiz In\u00e0cio Lula da Silva) just last month.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t remember what it\u2019s called, exactly, but there is a theory in political science that efforts to make it harder for people to vote sometimes result in even more voting by those people. It sort of blows up in everybody\u2019s face,\u201d said history major James.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think that\u2019s what\u2019s happening right now in the United States. A lot of young people, in particular, are voting because they\u2019re being told they shouldn\u2019t bother.\u201d<\/p>\n
Look, I know that an early morning voter sample at Cal State Fullerton is going to be skewed in favor of optimism and brains. Young people willing to vote in person, pre-coffee, before their first class \u2013 with DJ Abraham Huerta spinning \u201970s disco hits in the background \u2013 are probably more politically interested and organized than others in their (or any) age group.<\/p>\n
And no matter what I found in Fullerton, young people are less likely to vote than are older people. Even in the high-turnout political era we\u2019ve seen over the past decade, voters between ages 18 and 29 have been the least likely participants. In fact, the so-called youth vote has cracked 50% only twice in the past five national elections (presidential votes in 2016 and \u201920) and has dipped below 1 in 3 in the past two midterms (2018 and \u201922). Other age groups generally have voted at a much higher (60% or more) clip.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not likely to change this time, either.<\/p>\n
But Sanchez, among others, thinks a change might not be far off.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere aren\u2019t a lot of good options, right? Voting is what we\u2019ve got. I think young people know that, probably. Or if they don\u2019t, if we don\u2019t, I mean, we\u2019ll figure it out.\u201d<\/p>\n
And her mindset seemed to be catching.<\/p>\n
\u201cI never miss a vote,\u201d said Edith Gage, a 67-year-old from Fullerton. She said added that she was voting at the school because it\u2019s close to her house \u2013 mostly.<\/p>\n
\u201cBut do I enjoy seeing that all these kids \u2013 these young adults, I should say \u2013 are voting? Of course I do. It\u2019s beautiful.<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I mean that in a lot of ways.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cBecause I honestly believe every vote matters. And because I matter. And, I guess, because you matter, too.\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":517707,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[1400,163,165,164,2627,23,6392],"class_list":["post-517706","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-anaheim","tag-2026-elections","tag-anaheim","tag-anaheim-headlines","tag-anaheim-news","tag-cal-state-fullerton","tag-local-news","tag-voters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517706","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517706"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517706\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517707"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517706"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517706"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517706"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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