A terrific article from this week's Stranger newspaper in Seattle discusses why it is important that everyone work actively to get out votes for Referendum 71, but especially people under fifty
Opinion research shows that R-71 holds a tenuous majority of public support. A poll released on September 22 by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research found that only 51 percent of likely voters would approve the measure. The key word here is "likely." Scads of people don't vote in off-year elections, and the people who don't vote in these years are people like Alisha. If you're reading this paper, a lot of your friends are those voters. But if lots of those people vote, the referendum will pass.
"Younger urban voters often don't vote," Friedes warns—the kind of voters who are likeliest to support gay rights. "And a person being supportive of gay rights who doesn't vote is of no help."
Records from the secretary of state's office show that about 70 percent of registered voters between the ages of 18 and 34 voted in last November's general election, when Barack fucking Obama was on the ballot. But when zero black men were running for president, in the 2008 primary election, less than 19 percent of that same demographic turned out. Only 27 percent of people between 35 and 44 voted. In contrast, 72 percent of people over 65 voted. Older, more conservative voters dominated last August's primary election, and they are likely to dominate this year's off-year general election. Bluntly put, R-71 will lose if too many voters under 50 skip the election.
Read the entire article at http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/fight-the-fight/Content?oid=2358170
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