Official PARTICIPANT in the first ever YOUTH MEDIA BLOG-A-THON.

One of the discussions spawned from my first post on the super delegates got some really interesting blogs from The Cheddar Box and Oh Dang!

The Cheddar Box, who isn’t a fan of the whole super delegate/ delegate franchise (here here!!) offered some steps to be taken to get American’s citizens into the driver’s seat in picking the next President of the United States.

1.Allow same day registration.

We don’t have this already? If not, we should put that on the ballot. What if someone who has been for the most part uninterested in politics – or the election in general. Then, come Election Day they wake up with a whole new state of mind and decided to vote. Okay, maybe it sounds unlikely – but some people just need the extra time to get their stuff together.

2. Abolish restrictions against ex prisoners having the right to vote.

I commit a crime and that automatically means I don’t count as an American citizen anymore? Deport me while you’re at it!! I would find it utterly vexing to live in a country that wouldn’t allow me to voice my vote because I’m a former felon or I’m an immigrant. I’ll get more into that later.

3. Make voting mandatory.

As much as I would love to force everyone to show up at City Hall and cast their ballot – I’m afraid making something like this mandatory would make people want to vote even less. They’d probably start drawing kitties and doggies on their ballot than actually filling in the arrow. Even if it were mandatory the only way to get people to actually show up is if you gave away free iPods. You can’t force someone to do something because you think its right. If you want to get people to appreciate politics you have to find a reason to make them care. Because, if they don’t care now, chances are they won’t care later on.

Boston Progress Radio posted a blog on immigrants and voting that fits well into this. A friend of mine who moved to the U.S. almost seven years ago can’t vote. And since she can’t vote it, she doesn’t care. People leave office, and people enter office and in her mind nothing about that affects her. If you have no say in the world you live in, why would you care? When the immigrant populations tops the number of legal residents in the United States (years from now) the future President of the United States will Commander in Chief of the minority population. Snazzy title.
—Eming Piansay