It finally came up at the very end, when someone from the audience asked the panel what they thought should be done about the lack of care about politics among students. Yes, there are many bureaucratic obstacles impeding youth voting and it is certainly true that more youths would vote if it was a really simple process. Sending in an absentee ballot is rather annoying, and it would be better if it were something as minimally time-consuming as voting right on campus. However, I think that when students really want to vote, more often than not they reserve a few minutes of their day to do so.

The real problem is that even if it was as undemanding as walking outside, there would still be those students who simply did not care. I am not pretending to know what the root of this problem is, but there are certainly many ideas floating about. Many, including several of the panelists, point to youth disillusionment about politics—that students believe politicians are dominated by rich lobbyists and do not really care about their needs—and thus they do not vote. Try as candidates might to reach out to students, there will always be those students and adults alike who will remain cynical about the political process.

Unfortunately, I do not think that I have discovered a solution to the problem of voter apathy in the time that it has taken me to write this blog post, other than giving out free beer with votes. I do know that I commend efforts by the Roosevelt Institution to put on events such as this panel. While they may not be able to solve every issue, such as voter apathy, in the end, at least they are trying to take action to get Americans to exercise their most underappreciated right.