As a part of a module I have been doing this semester, which has been aimed towards our dissertation and learning how to do your own research with everything from methods to ethics, we have been assigned to a group project. This is not just any group project, because we have basically been allowed to do research on whatever topic we like to see what doing our dissertation will be like. This is the PAIR2004 module, if any potential Social Science students out there are curious!
Anyway, my group have decided to do it on voting and why young people are less inclined to vote. It is shocking how much of a difference there is between the younger and older generations in voter turnout here in the UK and doing this research has highlighted it a lot more to me.
If there is anything I want to bring from this research it is that by not voting, you are not changing anything. We had respondents in our survey saying their vote doesn’t count, but if everyone thinks that way, then obviously no change will happen. That goes for almost all the main issues we were made aware of in the research; young people think their vote doesn’t count or that current polices aren’t even influencing them. I do agree to some extent that many current policies aren’t tailored to young people. However, why would politicians focus their policies on young people, when they know that it is the older generation that comes out to vote? It is not fair, but if you want change you need to engage and use your voting privilege.
I do call it a privilege, because we tend to forget how many millions of people don’t experience the same freedom we do being able to go and cast our vote.
So, without sounding too cliché, whenever there is an election of any sort, I encourage you to take an hour off from revision and essays and read a bit about the different parties you can vote for and/or read about the positive/negative sides. This is particularly relevant now with the EU Referendum, and staying in/going out from the EU.
The University and the different student societies have been doing a lot of talks and events about the EU Referendum and I know there are talks taking place both this week and next week.
One of the many perks with being a student is that you get first-hand information from experts in their field, so although these lectures tend to be after lecture hours, they are still very much worth going to!
It’s been very interesting doing this research, but I do hope that whoever reads this (no matter what age) won’t get discouraged by the statistics of people who don’t vote. Maybe in a couple of years it would be hard to find young people who didn’t vote in the last election!
I know the local elections and the EU referendum are both coming up here in the UK soon and would therefore encourage everyone who can to register and go and vote!
Alexandra
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