Young voters need to lift participation rate

As we approach the national mid-term elections, multiple political and free press sources are reporting that voter turnout will once again be less than it was in 2016. During that election only the 58 percent of eligible voters who showed up elected our representatives and nation’s leaders.

Or to be more direct, the other 42 percent abdicated their responsibility to take charge of their own future and the future of our democracy.

Even worse than that, they dishonored the sacrifice of the millions of Americans who have either fought, bled, or died to create and preserve their constitutional freedoms.

If you are among the non-voting, my question is this. Why?

The Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan American fact tank based in Washington, D.C.

According to its research, the United States ranks near the bottom at 31st out of 35 mostly democratic nations for voter turnout. Again, why?

Even more alarming, the American demographic group with the absolute lowest voter turnout is the 18-29 age bracket at only 46 percent.

I have voted in every presidential election since 1964 except for one, 1972, when I was serving our country as a prisoner of war in Hanoi, Democratic Republic of Vietnam. What is your excuse?

Richard (Dick) Francis,

Fort Lauderdale