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Scholar 1100 paper-1s5es1i

My Mentor’s name is Alexa Duffy, she is 19 years old and a sophomore at OSU. She is originally from Akron, Ohio but now lives in North Carolina. She is a political science and international affairs major with a minor in French. Her hobbies include being apart of amnesty international, (she coordinates al the clubs in Ohio.) , Swimming, lifeguarding at the Rpac, ski club, and being a part of OSU votes. She has the weird “special” talent of taking her pinky toe and putting it over her other toe without using her hands. She came to OSU because when applying to Colleges she knew she wanted to go out of State. She was a buckeye fan growing up in Ohio, but she never toured. When she was in  Ohio visiting family visited Miami University and hated it. When she came back down to Columbus and her dads friend showed her around OSU campus, and she loved it. S She only applied to 3 colleges, UNC, Maryland and OSU.  She ended up hating Chapel Hill and felt at Home at OSU, couldn’t be happier. She did PSL because she did not get into the honors program and she likes politics. Her best experience at OSU was sleeping on the oval before college gamedays o she could be front row. Her worst experience at OSU was being in a long distance relationship. Her best advice to me was to do everything I can, that you are only a freshman once, and to find opportunities for free food!

Hadi Akbik

Kevin Freeman

Scholar 1100

September 26, 2018

More than one third of eligible voters in the U.S do not vote. What changes to the election process would you make to increase voter participation?

            Since the genesis of democracy in the United States, voting has always been at the core. Universal suffrage is something most people see as a necessary aspect of a democracy in the modern era. However, it has not always been this way. For a time, universal suffrage was something seen a distance away. It was not until relatively recently that the United States did not let most of its population take apart in the most basic form of democracy. For a while it was only white male land owners, then it expanded to all white men, all men, then finally in 1920 the right for women suffrage was attained. Through all the changes in voting the U.S has seen, it is not outlandish to see that we are still working out the kinks. The problem we have with voting is something that needs to change if we ever want to see the true potential of a democracy that is working in all of it’s facets, and non-voters are one of the biggest problems with our current form of democracy. There is a plethora of ways to increase voter outcome, these can include things such as making the voting deadline a national holiday, making voter registration automatic as citizens turn 18,  and allowing voters to vote online.

The first of these that in my opinion would increase the voter turnout greatly is making the voter registration automatic for citizens as they turn 18 years old. By doing this it takes out the entire process of having to register to vote on your own. According to demos.org 51 million Americans are not registered to vote. The majority being aged 18-24. The reason for this demographic simply not registering to vote is because of the hectic lifestyle they live. Most of these American’s are college students; focusing on exams, graduating, and finding a job in the ever increasingly competitive job market. Stopping to update your address, write your information down on a piece of paper, and the overall process that may only even take 10 minutes is what deters the college students from registering to vote. We have seen the world become faster than it ever ha seen before, if someone cannot sign up for something with the click of a button then it to them most likely seems like a waste of there time. Creating automatic voter registration would not only eliminate the need for these young Americans to stop their hectic schedules, it would increase their odds to vote as they are automatically put into the voter pool. If they know all they must do is show up and vote the odds will do nothing but increase.

Another way to increase the voter participation is making the voting day a national holiday recognized by workforces and universities across the nation. Everybody loves a holiday, a celebration, so why not make this very important thing something everyone wants to be apart of? Getting work or school off to vote for the betterment of your country would increase everyone’s inclination to vote. By making it a holiday people will know that this specific day is the day to vote, they will know to have registered to vote by that day, and they know they will be free that day to go vote. Making it a holiday merely costs one day of business for the complete improvement of our voter turnout.

A third method to increase voter turnout is allowing voters to vote online. At first this may seem like a bad idea, we have seen so much controversy with voter fraud and thoughts of collusion and corruption with out voting system already. However, with the ever-increasing technological world that we live in, going to vote in person is just becoming outdated. Everything you can do today you are able to do from the comfort of your home behind a computer screen. We already know that people are so short on time, but making the entire voting process online, it allows people to quickly vote on issues on a platform they are on anyway. If in time we can create a safe and secure way to audit and monitor online voting, it is almost guaranteed that voter turnout will increase.

All in all, voter turnout in the united states is not just going to get better overtime. With the quick lifestyle of citizens in the United States only getting faster, we have to change the current method of voting in order to fir their needs. By making the voting registration automatic, it removes the entire risk of people forgetting to register to vote, and makes the process easier on them. Creating a national holiday on the voter day draws more focus to the election from the general public, and allows them to have a day in whole in order to have time to vote. And in time by making the voting process online in the new age of technology we live in, the voter turnout will only see increases. We as a country deserve fair and just voting, but people just not coming out to vote is what stops the full potential of our democracy to be reached but making these changes we can see the true complete view of the American people of all backgrounds and opinions.

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