Hacker News Reader

Comment by d33 | Hacker News Reader

What's the difference really between a "faint voice" and no voice at all? What's the point of wasting breath if you get no influence?

View on HN

Lots of faint voices, put together, can actually make quite a noise.

...or make you think you have done something useful.

The "Brexit" stats have clearly shown that UK would have remained in the EU if the "millenials" had really made use of their right to vote.

The "old" generation (voting to leave the EU) clearly understands the value of their vote(s).

Voter turnout was at record levels. It's not obvious that greater turnout of "millennials" specifically was likely to happen. Typically it's difficult to ensure that one kind of voter turns out without also increasing the rate of turnout for other kinds of voters as well.

But voter turnout for younger people (18 to 24) was less than 40%.

If they'd had 75% turnout they may have swung the election.

In mid 2013 there were about 5.8m people between 18 and 24.

>> "In mid 2013 there were about 5.8m people between 18 and 24."

Which is what percentage of the voting population?

Total votes on either side were roughly 16 vs 17.5 million.

Mid 2013 there were 51.8m people aged between 18 and 89.

If we assume all of them can vote 5.8m is 11% of 51.8m.

This was the biggest problem with the referendum: apathy from the younger voters.

Just because those young who voted does not mean that those young that did not vote, would vote the same.

I would assume that is not the case here, but its something to consider.

You're asuming that the ones that didn't vote would have the same distribution as those that did.

Instead, maybe they actually were apathic, and their votes would be roughly 50-50 - so Leave could still win.

I'm going by, admittedly lousy, polling which consistently shows young people prefered remain.

To me, the vote was actually non-binary.

There were the Remain votes, the Leave votes, but then there the Protest votes -- which from my perspective were votes that said "I want to Remain, but dammit I don't like how things are going right now".

And a fourth one: integrate with the EU entirely (adopt the euro, etc.)

Something that's always bothered me about people who complain about low voter turnout among young demographics in the US is that young people are the least likely to be able to make it to the polls. In the US, election days are like any other- your employer is required to accommodate your vote, but in practice, younger demographics are much more likely to be working multiple shit jobs with bosses who treat them like disposable labor and couldn't care less about their rights. There are initiatives in many places to literally ship retired voters to the polls so they can vote, but our government seems to make it difficult for working people to vote. Or, while we're at it, take advantage of any other government service like the DMV, post office, etc that are only open during business hours.

Are election days national holidays in the UK?

I really like that idea. It should also cause businesses to push for LIMITING the number of voting holidays so that things are bundled up properly.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com