When President Obama won the 2012 election against former Senator Mitt Romney, the victory brought on his second presidential term. The numbers were close in the end, Obama at 50.4 percent and Mitt Romney at 48.1 percent. Four years before that Obama beat Senator John McCain with 52.9 percent compared to McCain’s 47.5 percent. Long gone are the days of presidential wins being taken with a “landslide.” Since the 1990s, the numbers between presidential candidates have been getting closer and closer, and with the 2016 election looming on our country, it may be time to wonder why.
Perhaps the blame lies within the fact that millennial apathy, what with the lack of political action, does not match up with an overwhelming amount of political support. To be fair, the largest reasoning behind this lack of participation from the millennial generation is because there is a lack of candidates that they support. That is, unless you want to count Bernie Sanders who has gained an enormous amount of popularity in minority groups and young voters.
But candidates and millennial apathy aside, one of the largest reasons that people do not vote anymore is because they simply cannot. In a country where the average American constantly has something to do and somewhere to be, such as school, work or at home taking care of the kids, voting has become a passing thought for many. These numbers are not close because large amounts of people are going out and participating in the elections. It is because there is such a small amount of votes that come through. The 2014 midterm elections were only 42 percent.
The only solution that gets straight to the root of this problem is to turn election day into a national holiday. When not every American that is eligible to vote is not going out and voting, it manages to take away the voice from the people of our country. We may have our opinions, and those who we want in control, but when there’s such small participation because Americans simply do not have the time, then there is an even larger issue. It is not easy for someone working a fourteen hour work day to find the chance to go to their local DMV and vote, or a student that is of voting age that has to go to school and also deal with their after school activities.
There are also various voter ID laws implemented that could keep the poor and minorities from participating in voting in the name of preventing election fraud. As more years pass, more minorities get involved in the voting process, something that a conservative majority of white men in government positions do not want. State lawmakers have turned to requiring at least some form of identification necessary when you got to vote, which in retrospect is a good idea – if it were not for the fact that a majority of poor people or minorities do not exactly have forms of identification on hand. Not everybody can go out to their local government building and obtain the information, which can be a long process for many.
Already a campaign has been made by voting activists, pressuring Obama into creating the national holiday, as well as Senator Bernie Sanders, who has a petition on his website. In most countries that let their citizens vote for those in charge of their country, election day is a holiday, and it is due time America catches up.
