About the number of young people voting, you are wrong. Not only did they vote in record numbers in this year’s primaries, the trend is projected to continue into the November election.
“LOS ANGELES, June 6 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/—With the U.S. presidential
primaries now officially over, it appears that young and first-time voters
18–29 years old registered and voted in record numbers, and that trend is
expected to continue this November according to Declare Yourself, the national
non-partisan, non-profit youth voting initiative.
Based on verifiable data culled from exit polls and other sources, more
than six million people between the ages of 18–29 actually voted in the
presidential primaries, which marks a record. The turnout is more than double
that of both the 2004 and 2000 primaries. The majority of young voters—
approximately 4.9 million—cast their primary ballot for a Democratic
candidate.
Of the Democratic electorate in states in which exit polling data was
available in both 2004 and 2008, the Declare Yourself analysis shows that
voters aged 18–29 made up 14.5 percent of the electorate in 2008 as compared
with 9.4 percent of the electorate in 2004; a 53 percent increase. On the
Republican side, 18–29 year olds share of presidential primary voters
increased roughly 10 percent, even as turn-out increased in all age groups.”
As to your attitude about voting, how does not voting improve the system? It is your life that will be affected in years to come by these leaders. They will decide how much taxes you pay, if there will be a draft, whether you will be able to count on social security in future, if your health care system will be improved, how much effort will be made to work on cleaning up the planet.
Is campaigning crappy in the US? Wasting money and far too long? Of course it is. How about working to change that?