If you don't vote, than you voted for whomever wins.
33
Young people, register and go to the voting stations! It is YOUR future.
42
As Bundini Brown said to Muhammad Ali..."Rumble young man, rumble".
22
Best news I've read in months!
38
As much as they don’t vote independent, “temper tantrum” or don’t vote at all.
1
I don't get it. In this country, money talks. Do young people have money?
1
No they don't and that is exactly why their voices will be heard - by others in the same situation. There are also the issues of affordable healthcare, increased access to higher wages and DACA to consider. All-in-all, good answers to "why do they think they can win." Oh, and add in high energy and a "can do" attitude. I'm proud of this younger generation. They are thoughtful and willing to speak out against all the rollbacks of environmental and educational issues which represent their future.
35
Thank you for highlighting our beloved city of Lancaster, PA. There is a definitive movement here to change the conservative tide. Here there is a large aged populous that is white, conservative & deeply religious that still stand fervently behind our current president who’s character flaws and abhorrent treatment of others is overlooked. There is a dynamic youth movement happening in Lancaster that is picking up momentum- what seems to define this movement is inclusion.
Now to bring to the greater county.
49
This is how the corrupt political system in the US could finally be changed, by the involvement of principled young voters. The future belongs to them and not to the old, white and bitter Trump base.
In the 70's my generation thought that we could change all of this and we clearly failed to do so. I hope that this generation is more focused and more successful than we were. In my opinion the future of this country depends on their success.
42
I grew up in this area referred to as the T between Philadelphia and its suburbs in the east and Pittsburgh and its suburbs in the west. It was always referred to as Alabama and most of the locals will vote for the Devil as long as there is an ' R' behind his name - as my grandmother always said.
20
It's heartening to see this interest among young voters. It would be interesting to know if there are a significant number among them who are NPA. I suspect that most NPA's are like me - older, disgusted with political parties. But younger voters understand that by voting in primaries they can affect who actually gets a shot at running, and they want to influence that. I guess that works if you are staying in one place or have an ideology that is represented by a party.
A lot of younger people in my area are NPA - they refuse to be republicans, and the democratic party is pretty disinterested in this area. Bernie Sanders had a surprising amount of support among the young here in Trump country.
7
This new generation of voters: Take up the fight to make sure every vote counts when we elect a president by urging your state legislatures to join the National Popular Vote Movement. Your shear numbers can make this change happen. No president should take office after losing by three million votes.
19
It would be so much easier and the results more truly representative if we did what Australia did nearly 100 years ago in 1926 and make voting a mandatory requirement of citizenship.
So simple, so economically efficient...so brutally honest.
It will never happen in America. Its too obviously doing something to make us more truly a government of We the People. Trump would say it is illegal.
24
@Bruce Olson
How about just changing election day to a weekend?
Working people and students can't always get to the polls.
40
All is not lost. For one, they may have registered to vote but getting them out to do so is another story. The seasoned citizens do not work and have nothing else to do but come out to vote. I don't think they will vote Democrat.
4
The young citizens of our great nation want to be more responsible and create more economic and social opportunities for themselves, their children and their fellow citizens. This generation is not a me first generation. It is a generation that cares about the environment and other people.
Shared responsibility, equality, and opportunity for everyone is what they are striving for. They need a battle cry that emphasizes these values. The Pledge Of Allegiance could outline these values each morning and during Congressional social, and business meetings.
I Pledge Allegiance To The Flag Of The United States Of America And To The Republic For Which It Stands. One Nation, Guided By Good, Indivisible, With Liberty, Justice, Responsibility, Equality, And Opportunity For ALL!!!
14
Pennsylvania has a population of 12.8 m people.
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That means there are, roughly, 10.4 m people of voting age who are potentially eligible to vote.
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So far, the state records indicate that total registrations are about 8.5 m, or 81% of the potential total.
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Historically (i.e., in the 1950's and 1960's), roughly 87% - 88% of eligible voters registered to vote.
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So, while these voter registration efforts are welcome, and are clearly an improvement on recent elections, they are still some fair distance from raising voter registration to the levels that were common not too long ago.
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Keep going guys. You've got a ways to go yet.
13
Registration drives are fine, but historically they have yielded very little in the way of increased turnout. Unless Sunrise and similar organizations have the ground game to get these newly registered citizens to the polls we’ll see the same old low turnout for this group.
7
If there has ever been a time that parents country-wide depended on their children, rather than the other way around......it will be this November.
Yes. The country is depending upon the youth.
66
I'll believe it if the Millennials and Gen Yers actually put their cell phones down and vote. Their group failures to vote is shameful and may have given us the current criminal and traitor in the WH.
25
People over 65 get all their medical bills paid for by IOUs to China which will be paid for by people under 18. It is time to turn this around. If you want to reduce your student loans or at least make them less onerous, then VOTE. If you do not VOTE, the appropriations committees ignore you and send all the money to the people who do VOTE. This is plain and simple. If you do not VOTE, don't complain.
24
Voter Apathy is what got Trump elected. Trump supporters were more likely to vote enough to win. If there was mandatory voting lie there is in Australia, Trump would not be President.
32
@Joseph B
Mandatory voting would not have prevented Trump. Only repeal of the Electoral College would have. He lost the vote, he was given the job by our Founding Fathers.
7
It will be interesting to see if the campaign advertising for and by the Congressional and Senate candidates reflect an attempt to reach out to the younger voters. So far in Missouri, it's been the same old attack ads by each party's support groups, but the candidates themselves do not have their own ads up yet. It would be nice to see some positivity to reflect the idealism of these new voters this year.
10
Go for it, kids. Register.....and then for the love of your country get to the polls and vote. Get there, bring your friends, bring your grandma and her friends. Remind them of how once they were young and strong and quite possibly marching in the streets for peace and civil rights. Maybe it's time for another youthquake. Your turn to lead. Those of us still able will back you up.
101
This article gives me hope. Even with gerrymandered districts, if younger people and minorities of all ages were to vote in high numbers, we could remove fossilized representatives who are beholden to the Koch brothers, the NRA, and the like. Besides registering people to vote, I hope these organizations are also instructing people on their voting options (absentee, early) and voter ID requirements.
92
@J. All true, and some of those fossilized representatives "who are beholden to the Koch brothers, the NRA, and the like" get early-onset fossilized -- look at Paul Ryan (48). Devin Nunes (44). Trey Gowdy and Jim Jordan (both 54). Etc. etc.
5
I'm glad to see this happening and hope it helps to get the extremists on the right out of office. Although, more importantly, I hope that this generation does a better job of steering this nation than the previous ones. No more needless wars; less income inequality; no more denial of climate change; reigning in the senseless gun violence; and figuring out a way to ensure that all have affordable access to health care (to name a few changes long overdue). I wish them well; I know that my generation (I'm 54) failed.
57
@Andrew N Sorry, but those of us who protested the Nixon war and watergate gave you people the blue print for success and you fumbled /period .
15
@donald carlon
Well, I admitted that my generation failed. I don't know though about the "blueprint" we were given. Even with the antiwar protests almost 60,000 Americans and 1-2 million Vietnamese died . So, I'd say your generation made a valiant effort, but by no means would I call that a blueprint for success. I would also add that if your generation were successful in the kind of change I'm hoping for, we never would have had the rise of Reagan, and the resurgence of the right.
3
Well I've been saying for ten years that the venom in the nation's politics won't begin to diminish till the old angry white guys begin to die off. The only question in my mind has been whether I'm going to die off with 'em and not get to see the result. But we'll see. There are many possibilities, and the ability of the Republican party to jigger congressional districts and play the electoral college so that you can lose by 8% and still win the seats is deeply rooted and effective. It is the anchor that drags against the pull of demographic change.
55
@gnowell
Hey! I'm an old angry white guy! Angry at all those old angry white guys that vote Republican and against our best interests!
Since my genetics pretty much assure 20 or more years of life, I will outlive the vast majority of my peers that have brought this country to ruin.
Signed, proud to be liberal
20
This is an inspiring story and I hope it is happening all across the country. These young people are our future and they owe it to themselves to ensure that the future of America is a place where they want to live.
And for those of you here and elsewhere reminding people to vote, young people can't do this alone.
Go to your local courthouse and find out what's needed to register people. Then get a clipboard and find a Saturday farmers' market or a first Friday or a local (public) venue popular with college-aged students and start registering voters. You can also volunteer at your local party office to make get out the vote calls (or even make them from home).
I have registered literally hundreds of voters and made thousands of calls. It is important work and it feels like you are actually making a difference. That's because you are.
77
Glad to see that more young people are getting registered to vote. I started voting as early as I possibly could, at either 18 or 21, and have never missed an election since....
If more young people voted they could outnumber the Republicans!
48
I am happy to hear that more young people are getting involved in the world around them. I just hope that get involved to the point of asking pointed questions of those seeking elections and are willing to use the systems in place to recall elected officials who say one thing and then just go along when the enter the halls of government.
Furthermore, I hope that more people begin to realize that we live in "one world not three!"
15
This is the best news I have heard in a long time. I hope these young adults realize that they own the future of the country more than the older generations. I hope that the young people of Pennsylvania throw the GOP on the trash heap of history for all that it has done for their parents and for all that it will do for them. Dumping the GOP might well change this country from the oligarchy that it has become to something more democratic. Let's hope. And -- let's hope these young people actually go and vote in November.
50
Few young people realize that they will be stuck in minimum-wage jobs and living in Mom's basement as long as they vote for the people whose lifestyles depend on unending wars abroad, open borders, unfettered reproduction by the uneducated and outsourcing of industries to China. It's not R v. D, it's America v. Global.
14
@Paul I do believe that your comment "hits the nail on the head!" We do not live in isolation and that isolation really is no longer an option.
8
@Paul Nationalism is a very bad thing /period
11
@Paul respectfully I disagee. It is not rvd nor a v global, it is a system that serves capital over that of society/people. Business is vital and needs to have a fertile environment but Must be in service to humans not simply its own perpetuity. If we stay in our borders and only trade among ourselves wealth is not the result nor higher standard of living over all, We live in an interconnected world, capitalism can not thrive in a vacuum but it can be should be yoked to serve society. peace.
14
Registration- Great Start
Now VOTE
Vote like our future depends on it!
38
I am glad to see PA leading the country in something positive like this! So glad to see the new crop of candidates too.
Men and women have lost lives, health, families, & careers to gain/protect this right. Please don't let them down, and vote every election!
45
My hope for the future lies in these young men and women. Tired of the establishment incrementalism that never threatens the monied interests, they will demand a a seat at the table. And they deserve one...it is their world to inherit. To all those Republicans whose party represents a smaller and smaller sliver of Americans, I say...the reckoning is coming. Every two years a new cohort of these young are eligible to vote. How long before you feel the weight of their collective power?
32
As an old woman, I voted for Obama because he was the young people's candidate. I figure you are soon to take control, and it time for us old BabyBoomers to step aside. I am horrified at the people who marched in the streets for civil rights and to end the Viet Nam war are now supporters of Trump. Even the oldsters I admire - Biden, Pelosi, EWarren - should step aside. If you're old enough to get Social Security, maybe you should actually retire from politics. I support free college education and programs to support young families, and anything that helps the environment. Just try to take some of this out of the 1% hide and not just seniors.
120
This is a good first step! But you need to follow-up and actually go vote on 11/6.
38
As a citizen of a democracy, it is a responsibility and duty to vote in each and every election
31
Experienced voters might admire the inspired innocence of youth, and hope again for incremental progress. So, we who are weary of candidate commitments that soon fade away during elected office (realpolitik exposes the naïveté of candidate and voter) should impress on young voters that the long game is how good government works, and that requires that the voter be an active citizen, keeping our elected officials spotlighted about their commitments. Democracy is work.
Yet, it’s based in inspiring vision. Anxiety and anger are no basis for citizenship and voting. We have to realize that worthwhile values are causing the anxiety and anger, so that we act to keep great values prevailing in political life. Great values sustain long games and the plodding work for little changes that may aggregate into wonderful trends, like single votes that stand for admirable futures.
I, as voter and citizen, can be a pixel in a gorgeous composition called the Good Society, maybe; but only if I insist on the worth of the composition, sustained by good government. Good government for Good Society is fueled by an endless conversation among us about what the Good Society may be or IS becoming.
That surely sounds precious, but life across generations is made of long games, and that has to be fueled by values worth working for, to be securely instituted in good government. Good ideas—good policies, programs, movements—only live when kept alive in long games.
12
The young citizens of our great nation want to be more responsible and create more economic and social opportunities for themselves, their children and their fellow citizens. This generation is not a me first generation. It is a generation that cares about the environment and other people.
Shared responsibility, equality, and opportunity for everyone is what they are striving for. They need a battle cry that emphasizes these values. The Pledge Of Allegiance could outline these values each morning and during Congressional social, and business meetings.
I Pledge Allegiance To The Flag Of The United States Of America And To The Republic For Which It Stands. One Nation, Guided By Good, Indivisible, With Liberty, Justice, Responsibility, Equality, And Opportunity For ALL!!!
5
Registering to vote is a necessary but not a sufficient step. You must get out to the polls and cast your vote.
A suggestion to all voters. Get an early ballot and fill it out. If you can't make it to the polls you can still cast your vote by mail.
70
@Ronny
re Early Ballot/Voting, voting by mail.
After successfully using vote by mail in FL for years, I wanted to do the same thing here in - patooey! - Texas. Talk about voter disenfranchisement.
First, those eligible to vote by mail are few. Military, age, a few others. Not anyone who wants to. OK, I qualify by age......................but the approval is only good for the election year granted! No kidding.
As I am still able bodied, I just go vote (early) in person. Easier than putting up with those legal Texas cow patties of impediment.
7
Few younger people realize how powerful their numbers are.
The establishment counts on this fact. refuses to court their vote with genuine interest and follow through on any measures mentioned.
A couple decades ago if all the 18-29 yr olds had registered to vote, and actually voted, they would have had enough people to shape the political landscape to their choosing.
I hope they do so this time!
62
Please, for the love of democracy, get to the polling place and vote!
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