Why Voter Turnout is Important for our Country

"I voted" stickers.

Voting is one of the most important things a citizen can do to express their desires for their country’s  uture. In a democracy, citizens can choose who they want to be a leader and can base their votes on their own personal opinions. Yet many people in the United States don’t take the opportunity to vote. In the article “Get More People to Vote” the author Steve Case references the fact that “in 2018, only 49 percent of eligible adults voted in America.” Less than half of the people who could vote actually did. If everyone who could have voted did, the results of the elections could have turned out very different. This is why voter turnout is so important. If we want the elected government officials to accurately represent the people of the United States, then we need more people to vote.

There are many reasons why people don’t vote, such as having to work while voting is taking place, not having knowledge about politics, or simply not being interested. There are also many ways to fix these issues.

To fix the issue of voters being unavailable, some have proposed either making the day of elections a national holiday or moving elections to Veterans Day. The author of the article “Move Voting to Veterans Day,” Jill Lepore, would rather move elections to Veterans Day because it would not require having to make another paid holiday on a different election day.

Educating people about politics and getting them interested may be a more difficult task. There should be more education about politics in school so that people learn from a younger age about how politics work and allow them to form their own opinions. People will be educated on how to choose candidates and how to vote.

If we add more education about politics, it could also work to get people more interested in the topic. People will be more aware of issues in the government and would be able to figure out their own opinions on how to solve them. When people are more interested in politics, they will want to vote. If people know what’s happening in their country they can make votes that show their own individual opinions and elect the right people for the United States of America.

Works Cited

Case, Steve. "Get More People to Vote." Politico, www.politico.com/interactives/2019/
          how-to-fix-politics-in-america/participation/get-more-people-to-vote/. Accessed 15 Nov. 2019.
Lepore, Jill. "Move Voting to Veterans Day." Politico, www.politico.com/interactives/2019/
         how-to-fix-politics-in-america/participation/move-elections-to-veterans-day/. Accessed 15 Nov.
         2019.

Velez, Monica. "'I voted' stickers." Valley Public Radio, www.kvpr.org/post/
         theyre-sticky-oval-shaped-red-white-and-blue-why-do-we-get-i-voted-stickers. Accessed 15     Nov. 2019.