“Why Don’t More People Care?” – Voting

US MAINE PRIMARY
A resident arrives to cast her vote at a polling station at the Kennebunk Town Hall in Kennebunk, Maine, Tuesday, June 12, 2018. Charles Krupa / AP Photo
US MAINE PRIMARY
A resident arrives to cast her vote at a polling station at the Kennebunk Town Hall in Kennebunk, Maine, Tuesday, June 12, 2018. Charles Krupa / AP Photo

“Why Don’t More People Care?” – Voting

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Next month, millions of Americans will head to the polls in what many observers are calling one of the most important elections in U.S. history. Issues such as, voting rights, gender rights, labor rights, environmental protections, and access to healthcare hang in the balance. Yet, American voter apathy continues to be an increasing phenomenon. Pew reports that only 61.4 percent of Americans voted in the 2016 Presidential elections, and a Tufts study found that a majority of young people don’t think voting is an effective means of social change. On occasion,Worldview will ask, on a number of topics, the question, “Why Don’t More People Care?”Today we’ll ask two experts, “Why don’t more people care about voting?” Ari Berman is senior reporter at Mother Jones covering voting rights. He’s author of the book Give Us the Ballot: The Modern Struggle for Voting Rights in America. Barbara Ransby is professor of History, African-American Studies, and Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC).