Kids Vote 

By TAD BARTIMUS

Every election year we go through the same old gloom-and-doom predictions about voter turnout – and every year they turn out to be right. Maybe that's why we're getting what we deserve.

No matter who wins, the story of this election night well be the phantom citizen. It's like listening to a pledge drive for public television: everybody's entitled to benefit from it, but only a tiny percentage of the recipients support it.

Pathetic.

A survey taken a month ago revealed that perhaps only a quarter of our citizens, ages 18 to 24, could name both presidential candidates; 70 percent couldn't identify the vice presidential candidates.

Pathetic.

There are lots of excuses flying around the airwaves for this ignorance. Young people told MTV they don't see the relevance of politics to their lives. Do they not drive the interstate? Use a passport? Drink clean water? Feel safe in an airplane?

They cited a feeling that politics represents "big money and gross exaggerations." So does Wall Street. Television. Fancy restaurants. The phone company. Their car. 

Pathetic.

Anyone who thinks politics is not relevant to their lives should move to Bosnia. Where they will quickly discover how relevant politics is. Or they can pay attention to Yugoslavia, where hundreds of thousands of people recently risked their lives to vote for democracy, then took to the streets to overthrow the despot Slobodan Milosevic, an indicted war criminal, when he wouldn't yield power to the duly elected Vojislav Kostunica. The Yugoslavs vote because they know how relevant politics is to their lives.

Are Americans simply getting too lazy to exercise their right to vote, the greatest gift ever given to mankind?

Yes and no. Yes for some, no to a new wave of under-18-year-olds whose political enthusiasm is sweeping through some public schools. Known as Kids Voting USA, this private, non-profit group has energized students. It hopes long-term results will be to infuse new life into elections by instilling in our youngsters the habit of going to the polls and pulling the lever on their own behalf.

Kids Voting is the result of efforts a dozen years ago by some Arizona businessmen who discovered, on a business trip to Costa Rica, that its electorate turned out in amazing numbers (up to 80 per cent) and brought their kids to the polls with them.

Karen T. Scates, of Tempe, Az., is the president of Kids Voting, which engaged more than 5 million student voters under the age of 18 in 1998, the same year only 36 per cent of registered voters cast ballots in congressional races. The kids cast ballots in mock elections that duplicate the real ballot, except for initiatives.

Scates' hope is that when parents take their children to the polling place to cast their mock ballot they, too, will vote – for real. Eventually, says Scates, Kids Voting hopes to raise voter turnouts and reverse the trend toward political apathy. The goal is to equal voter turnouts in Europe and other places, where 70 to 80 per cent of the electorate pick their officials. 

In my husband's eighth grade social studies class students compete to sign up and operate the Kids Voting booth on election day, a school holiday. He says they're proud to be able to show younger students how to fill in ballots, that they like being civic examples to their peers. One student even begged to work two shifts at the booth because she was having such a good time. 

What Kids Voting needs is national recognition to get into all schools. President Bill Clinton said as much in a Minnesota speech in 1994:

"Now kids are taking their parents to vote. We're gonna get up to 100 percent voting if that keeps going."

Why doesn't every state Department of Education make this a priority and support the program? Perhaps we need to send foot-draggers to Bosnia to learn how important it is to get children involved in the election process.

Eventually, if Kids Voting stays on track, the enthusiasm of our children could translate into a larger – and more informed -- electorate making more of our national decisions. It could also help create a bigger pool of candidates for public office. There's nothing sadder on election day than pulling the curtain, only to confront a roster of single candidates.

To find out if your school participates in Kids Voting, contact Ms. Scates at 398 South Mill Ave., Suite 304, Tempe, AZ 85281 or e-mail their web page at http://www.kidsvotingusa.org/.

The older I get, the more convinced I am that positive change comes from grassroots work. Vote on November 7th. Don't be pathetic.






© 2000 The Women Syndicate

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