SETH MICHAEL MEYER
Special to The Leader
In a recent report, Fredonia’s voting percentages for the 2016 presidential election have been marked as below average compared to other SUNY college institutions. In the Nation Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement conducted by Tufts University, Fredonia’s voting percentage was measured at a miserable 41 percent. The average for SUNY college institutions was marked at 50.4 percent. .
Such a low turnout of college students in the election has definitely raised some eyebrows. Julya Polaski, a sophomore music education major at Fredonia and registered voter in Pennsylvania, believes it was important for college students to vote in the election because the younger generations “need their representation in government.”
Polaski does not feel represented following the outcome because she was one of the many college students who voted for Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
According to a CNN politics poll, Clinton swept in the millennial category, taking 55 percent of the vote in the 18-29 years old range. However, this group is well underrepresented, only making up 19 percent of the vote.
In a 2017 report by the United States Census Bureau, this age group consists of about 83.1 million members, exceeding the “baby boomer” generation which has about 75.4 million members. Millennials make up an entire quarter of the United States population.
“There are a lot of baby boomers,” said Polaski, “and now there needs to be more [millennials].”
If there are more millennials, why didn’t they have a higher voter turnout?
There’s no one reason for the political inactivity. Many millennials were huge Bernie Sanders fans and his loss could have dissuaded millennials from voting. Some Hillary fans may have thought that a Clinton White House would be too easy to even bother with the voting.
Whatever the reason may be, there is some good news for underrepresented millennials.
There has been a 5 percent jump in college student turnout rates since 2012. Continuing increases like this will lead to a better political representation that reflects the large millennial population.
Women have outvoted men for a second consecutive time, 54.1 percent to 47 percent. A statistic like this speaks volumes to the feminist movement found prominently in the college setting.
Millennials are also coming to realize the importance of politics as it affects them closely such as the controversial appointment of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos, or the cancellation of DACA which affects more than 800,000 young men and women living in the U.S.