I listened to a story on NPR’s The Takeaway this morning, Why Don't More Americans Vote? The segment included interviews with Sherrilyn Ifill of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, who spoke about voter suppression and the history of the Voting Rights Act, Devin Coleman, Communications Director for the Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, and Tolu Aleshinloye, a DACA recipient living in New York City.
There are links to lots of information on the story page, but one I would encourage everyone to check is Tolu’s story on a website called “The Love Vote.” I’m sure many Daily Kos readers find it frustrating that so many Americans fail to exercise their right to vote. Imagine the perspective of the many people living here, like Tolu, who don’t have that right. The Love Vote offers them a platform to encourage others to pledge to vote on their behalf. I think it’s a great idea, and an easy way for more people to get involved with getting out the vote. Even if you plan to vote anyway, pledging for someone will make you feel your vote is more worthwhile. If you have a social media network, post a link there, too.
Obviously, age and citizenship are prerequisites to being able to vote, but there were also more than 6 million US citizens disenfranchised in the 2016 election because of a felony conviction. It should come as no surprise that, as concluded by The Sentencing Project, that
Felony disenfranchisement has potentially affected the outcomes of U.S. elections, particularly as disenfranchisement policies disproportionately impact people of color. Nationwide, as of 2016 one in every 13 black adults could not vote as the result of a felony conviction, and in four states – Florida, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Virginia – more than one in five black adults was disenfranchised.
If you need more inspiration to get out the vote, watch this clip of March For Our Lives activists Emma Gonzalez and Matt Deitsch speaking to Trevor Noah: