Voting - why we don't do it

Earlier last month, there was a local primary election. I would have had no idea, except for this piece of mail I received a few days beforehand.

Somehow, this direct mail was not enough to remind me to vote, nonetheless - where to go for the election. Our generation has grown up in a world with constant communication - emails, texts, push notifications and more. Anything we actually need to do is reinforced multiple times before it actually needs to get done, and most of the time that reinforcement is digital communication.

One example of this is applying for graduation. This is something important enough that we should be able to proactively seek out this task and ensure that it gets done, but we know the university will send us multiple reminder emails with step-by-step instructions on what to do. It's how we have grown up.

It's fascinating to me that we live in an age of information, but no one from the city, state or government has our email addresses. The NSA has our metadata, phone information, and companies like Facebook and Google have our contact information, but our cities do not. In order to remind me how to vote, I am mailed a postcard with three options- going to an election day polling location, an early voting location or voting absentee online- which becomes a nuisance once all registration is complete. So many corporations and retail stores have our email addresses to remind us to shop, go to the bank or take other actions, but our city or country can't simply remind us to vote on the communication vehicle where we are most attentive.

According to the Center for the Study of the American Electorate, of eligible voters, voter turnout was estimated at the following rates for presidential elections: 54.2% (2000), 60.4% (2004), 62.3% (2008) and 57.5% (2012). If this is for presidential elections, one can only estimate that local state or city elections have a lot lower numbers.

Some say Millennials were "coddled" by our parents, but we must acknowledge digital communication as a generational shift rather than Millennials' lack of interest in government matters or being proactive at all. In order to stay relevant, cities and politics must "catch up" on where and how to best communicate with their target audiences to send the proper calls-to-action.