The ignorance of one voter in a democracy impairs the security of all. The apparent contradiction can be explained in part by another recent national survey of youth attitudes that revealed great cynicism about our political institutions.
Young people feel alienated.
In fact, many political campaigns neglect youth voters and fail to address their concerns because so few vote. Although a large majority believe that voting is an effective way to bring about change, it is clear that these youth think they can make the greatest difference closest to home. They haven t made the connection between volunteering and voting, at least not on the national level. This is a troubling disconnect. If youth today continue to see volunteering as an alternative to voting in other words, to treat the symptoms of social and environmental ills and ignore the policy issues that caused them their children will be cleaning up the same dirty rivers and tutoring at the same mediocre schools where they now volunteer.