Democracy is Not a Spectator Sport: VOTE!
Democracy is Not a Spectator Sport
A healthy democracy requires active participation. According to the United States Census Bureau, young voters have consistently voted at lower rates than all other age groups. In the 2020 Presidential Election, only 66.8% of all eligible U.S. voters said they cast their ballots, while only 51.4% of eligible voters ages 18-24 and 62.6% of voters ages 25-44 said they participated in the election. Sadly, these percentages are historically close to average. Voter participation drops even further for midterm elections when U.S. Congressional lawmakers, judges, school boards, and many state and local government officials are elected to represent the will of the people.
Voting in Comics
Social progress can happen much too slowly for many people. When change feels like it happens at a glacial pace, eligible voters may feel apathetic, frustrated and disenfranchised. It's an election year and voting remains an effective way to affect social change. More than 8 million young people will have turned 18 since the 2022 midterm elections. A demographically diverse group, the total number of Gen Z voters eligible to participate in the 2024 election is roughly 41 million, and, together with Millennials, make up nearly 43% of the U.S. population. Will they vote? Will you?
Many comics advocate for voting as a form of civic engagement and as an act of protest itself. Comics have been used to educate the public on the Voting Rights Act and how-to cast a ballot, in addition to depicting the ways in which voter suppression tactics are used to target specific groups based on race, ethnicity, gender, political affiliation, age, or other aspects of voters’ identities. Common voter suppression schemes include intimidation and threats, enacting strict voter ID laws, reducing polling place hours, restricting registration, purging voter rolls, eliminating early and mail-in voting opportunities, understaffing voting locations in underserved communities to create long lines, denying time away from work to vote, and moving polling locations farther away from college campuses. By design, voter suppression places burdens on racial minorities, poor people, and disabled and elderly voters. Experts assert that voter fraud and illegal voting — often cited to justify regressive voting laws— are not a systematic and widespread occurrence.