Poll Finds Majority of College Students Prepared to Shame People for Not Voting

Poll Finds Majority of College Students Prepared to Shame People for Not Voting

This should come as no surprise. Shaming people was a common practice during Mao’s Cultural Revolution, too.

VOX reports:

Poll: College students are ready to call out people who don’t vote

In a new Axios poll, 61 percent of college students revealed that they would definitely or probably shame someone they know if they chose not to vote.

The poll, conducted online by College Reaction for Axios October 6-7 among 872 college students at accredited four-year universities, was specific in its wording. It asked about “someone you know [who] does not vote even though they can” — verbiage that acknowledges voting can be prohibitively difficult for people who can’t take time off work, may be forced to stand for hours in line, or have been unfairly purged from the voter rolls.

An August report from the Knight Foundation indicates that college students are uncharacteristically motivated to vote this year, 71 percent of them saying they are “absolutely certain” of it. This surge in participation from college students follows a trend reported by several outlets following the 2018 election where “turnout among college student voters more than doubled from the 2014 to 2018 midterm elections” according to the Institute of Higher Education. That enthusiasm was echoed in the Axios poll. Only 16 percent of the students said they would definitely not “address, confront, or otherwise convey disappointment” to the person who did not vote.

College students aren’t alone; “vote-shaming” in all its forms is becoming a steady fixture in American politics, from its more gentle forms like former President Obama’s famous “Don’t Boo, Vote” to the explosive aftermath of the 2016 primary when the Democratic Party desperately attempted to knit itself back together.

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