LEWISBURG — Statistics show the younger generation is less likely to vote than years past. Janice Bigelow of the League of Women Voters of Lewisburg gave some statistics on Millenials and voting, “In the 2014 mid-term elections, only 19.9 percent of 18 to 29-year-olds actually voted in that election.” She said that is down from 24 percent in the 2010 election.
Bigelow says a couple of local residents decided to take action and learn why younger voters aren’t exercising their right to cast a vote, “Jim and Rebecca Mauch were concerned and one day they contacted us and said we would like to talk to you about some of our concerns. They didn’t just come to express concern. They actually came to us and said we have approximately $45,000 that we are willing to put towards this, to make some effort to encourage civic engagement among our young people.”
Susan Warner-Mills, president of the League of Women Voters, explains how the funding will be used, “It’s a big project and we kind of had to struggle for a while to figure out how to get our hands around it. We started doing a lot of research. There is a young people’s project at the national league. We reached out to a lot of them and got advice.”
Warner-Mills said, “We came up with a three-prong project. For the first prong, we reached out to the political science department at Bucknell University and we have an incredibly exciting partnership with them called The Mauch Fellowship.”
She expanded on what the fellowship will be doing, and two other steps they are taking, “We have two student fellows this fall, working on a series of forums. They organize them and research them and they facilitate the dialogue at those forums. We also have a high school student, Kat Gardner, who is working on a project. It’s kind of a series of events at the high school. And then the third prong is going to be young adults, the post college through 35-years-old.”
Students involved in the project will be writing reports on potential reasons why younger people aren’t voting and what steps can be taken to encourage more civic engagement. You can hear more on the project from Bigelow and Warner-Mills on WKOK Sunrise, online at www.wkok.com.
