IGNITE's Blog

How many times a day do you open Instagram Stories to find someone you follow has posted a poll? More than once I’d guess. We are constantly being inundated with polls, political and otherwise. Especially leading up to the election, it seems like all the headlines are touting numbers. However, unlike social media polls, election polls are nuanced, and quite frankly confusing most of the time. 

We all heard this statistic after the 2016 election: 52% of white women voted for Trump. And now new polling shows the same trend could play out for middle-aged white women in 2020. Yet all the candidates are ignoring a vital demographic: new voters. Given that one-in-ten eligible voters will be from Gen Z this fall (24 million new voters!), Gen Z may prove essential to the outcome of this election cycle.

Your vote does matter! There is no way to say that loudly enough. We need to knock down every argument we hear about why voting doesn’t matter because it truly does. In 2016, the winning margin in Michigan averaged only two votes per precinct. Even if you don’t live in a swing state, you should still vote. Why? Because there’s a lot of talk about contesting the results of this election if President Trump isn’t reelected. However, it’s awfully hard to contest a landslide win.

A recent analysis found that more than 558,000 presidential primary election ballots were rejected because of mistakes. Yikes! That means that over 100,000 people didn’t get their votes counted or voices heard. 

Unless you're living under a rock, you've probably been hearing a lot about making a plan to vote. Due to several factors unique to this election cycle - the pandemic, cutbacks to the USPS, rampant misinformation, and blatant voter suppression - it isn't enough to be a registered voter. You need a detailed plan to get your ballot, cast your vote, and check that it's counted. 

Elections have consequences. Just as voting has the power to reshape our country with each election, so does not voting. Which is why voter apathy is so frustrating. Deciding who and what to vote for is an active choice, but so is not voting.

Are you one of the younger Gen Zers who can’t yet vote in general or local elections, and are screaming ‘What about me?’. This post is for you.

During the 1960s, Alabama was at the center of the fight for voting rights yet today, six decades later, it’s still one of the most difficult places to register to vote and cast a ballot. As other states have evolved policies for early voting, voter registration, and vote-by-mail, a report by the Southern Poverty Law Center shows pretty much the opposite in Alabama. 

A presidential election during a global pandemic is just one more challenging circumstance for Americans to navigate in 2020. As a result, several states have expanded absentee voting in the past few months to allow people who are concerned about contracting COVID-19 to vote-by-mail instead of at the polls. However, Tennessee is one of six states that still requires an excuse in order to cast a ballot by mail.

Believe it or not, Wisconsin used to be one of the easiest states to vote in. Other states looked to the Barger State as a golden example of voting. Things have been steadily changing, though.