5 Reasons why some of the Youth do not vote

1. Impatience — the Youth is drowning in government bureaucracy whether it’s getting a driver’s license, birth, marriage certificates, clearance to get a job or board exam. Some lose their cool looking for their precinct or their names in the voters list. They want things to change for the good of the nation but the movement for changes anywhere and everywhere takes centuries to take effect. They vote thinking that after the elections, the winners will at once make rules, policies, laws that will solve the problems they see and feel.

2. Ignorance — Out of school and jobless youth know nothing about elections. The election items they see in the papers, TV, computers are mostly propaganda blah blah blah so they switch to MTV, movies, cartoons, etc., the media does not say why they should vote, does not teach them step by step how and where to register, what identification papers to bring. They feel nobody cares if they vote or not.

3. Distrust — FAKE news and willful disinformation stress that his vote will not make a difference because the party in power will stay in power or that the elections are fixed or rigged. Why bother lining up in the crowded, hot, stuffy, smelly dark voting centers waiting for your turn to vote.

4. Drop in the ocean — Why one isolated, miserable, lousy vote doesn’t matter because most voters are either beholden to or in the pockets of politicians or vested interest groups. My pure, idealistic, innocent, honest, unpaid vote will not change anything.

5. Vicious circle — The youth think the politicians don’t know the issues they care about like climate change, women empowerment, world hunger and diseases. The candidates say “Why bother with these undisciplined youth, anti-status quo, anti-establishment, anti-everything; they’re not even registered voters or if they are, won’t vote. I rather talk to the people about dengue vaccine, black holes, H.I.V., Spratly, LGBT, B.S.P., etc., things I know little about and which my audience know nothing at all.”