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An election like Tuesday’s wasn’t just a contest to see which candidates win a few years in office. It was also a moment to take the vital signs of our democracy—which voters come out to be part of the exercise and whether they feel the system works. In recent elections the pulse of young voters has been harder to detect than others’: In 2012, only about 38 percent of eligible voters aged 18 to 29 went to the polls, compared with 70 percent of people over age 65.
After a year in which many young voters “felt the Bern” and many more felt burned by the primary process in both parties, how will this week’s vote look to young voters and what do the results say about our civic health? H
DeNora Getachew, the New York City Executive Director, Generation Citizen; Carlos Jesus Calzdilla, a freshman at LIU and a former Bernie Sanders supporter voting for Green Party candidate Jill Stein; and Brit Byrd, who works in city government and is a former Sanders supporter voting for Hillary Clinton joined me on BkLive to discuss it.
Our talk occurred hours before the polls closed and the world changed, but the issues raised exist regardless of the results of the national race.
