Decreasing Voter Apathy

One of the goals I have as county chair is to decrease the amount of apathy that exists. It really is sad that we send our troops overseas to fight for freedom yet our own people do not use the rights given. While living in the Dominican Republic for 2 years, I was able to witness their Presidential election. There was excitement as the various candidates would come to town. People would line the streets to watch and political talk was abundant. Now keep in mind the system was very corrupted and in this particular election the current president who had won re-election previously due to voter fraud was up to the same game. He was behind in votes until the electricity went out and when it came back on, he had won. The country was brought to a brink of chaos in the weeks after the election, where martial law ruled and people were clashing in the streets. Finally the chaos ended when the President decided to compromise and only be in office two more years. While watching this unfold, I thought about our own country and how we take our right to vote for granted.

Now lets flash forward to 2008. Utah is one of the leaders in the nation for poor voter turnout. People for various reasons just don't care. In local elections a small percentage of those able to vote actually do vote. And so I ask why is that? Why do people not care about who is representing them? Some will say that it is because one party dominates the scene, and why vote because we know the outcome. I am not going to try and prove that point wrong because honestly, there is some validity to it. What we need to recognize is that in Utah Politics, our precinct meetings and county conventions holds a lot of weight. If you really want to have a voice, you must go to your precinct meetings, stand up, voice your opinions and then get elected to be a delegate. In our last meetings, some precincts were not even represented. That my friends is sad! Are our brave men and women sacrificing so much so that others can have they type of freedom we enjoy, just to have their own countrymen not exercise the right? I would hope not.

So here is what I propose:

• We need to empower the Precinct chairs, vice chairs and Secretary's so that they know what is going on in county, state and national politics. They need to be out recruiting neighbors to attend meetings and they themselves need to organize with the help of the Leg chairs opportunities for candidates to get the message out
• We need to get our neighbors registered to vote- again the best way is through the precinct system
• Our candidates need to do more campaigning and not just assume they have it in the bag (even though they may). I believe we that we have a fine bunch of legislators that really do care about Cache Valley. I also think they do a pretty fair job of getting out there, however by knocking the doors and getting to meet people who don't attend events, they can hopefuly persuade some that may not vote to vote.
• We need to be a party that is not looked upon as being too elitist or out of touch. We need to reach out to our younger generations and make sure they understand that we care about them as much as the democrats. We need to continue to build up our USU republicans, as well as form organizations for our high school kids and our young republicans who do not go to USU.

These are just a few ideas and I am sure there are more. Please comment if you have any thoughts. We must always keep in mind that in the recent presidential elections, every vote does count. Had Al Gore just won his home state, he would have been president. Good thing he didn't and good thing States like Utah and Wyoming with just a few of the electoral votes, voted the way we did. This election is shaping up once again to be a close one, and your vote does count!