Importance of Youth Vote

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It is widely believed and often circulated that the youth of today are uninterested in political events and are too wrapped up in their own self interest to pay any mind to the business of politics. While, this may ring true for certain individuals of "generation Y", or the "millennial" generation, to generalize the whole of the youth demographic is both negligent and false. In fact, research found that political involvement is of great importance to young Canadians; 74% of a poll group reported that "always voting in elections" is vital to being a good citizen; in addition, 63% voted that it is important to "be informed of current events", and 15% said they should be "active in political parties". (The Huffington Post Canada, 2012) According to those statistics, voter turnout for the young demographic should be marginally higher than the numbers reported in the last election, where only 38.8% of voters aged 18-24 cast a vote. (Bolen, 2012) This phenomenon oftentimes contributes to the stereotype of young people being uninvolved in politics, but could perhaps suggest that young people do not feel involved in the current political process and instead channel their energy into different sources. Due to the appalling voter turnout amongst young people, it must be of top concern among political parties to market towards a younger demographic if they wish to engage an untapped source of votes and retain political power despite the disappearing "baby boomer" generation and the growing integration of technology.
Typically, political parties have proven accustomed to catering towards the "baby boomer" generation with promises of pension programs and increased health care. While this method is effective at acquiring votes from older citiz...

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... Canada. Party Politics, 10(4), 427-444.
Harrell, A., Panagos, D., & Matthews, J. (2009). Explaining Aboriginal Turnout in Federal Elections: Evidence from Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Elections Canada.
O'Neill, B. (2007, June). Indifferent or Just Different? The Political and Civic Engagement of Young People in Canada. University of Calgary. Ottawa: Canadian Policy Research Networks.
Reilly, I. (2011). Amusing Ourselves to Death? Social Media, Political Satire, and the 2011 Election. Canadian Journal of Communication, 36(3), 503-512.
The Huffington Post Canada. (2012, December 20). Generation Y In Canada: National Poll Of Millennials Reveals A Troubled Generation (INFOGRAPHIC). (A. Rempel, Ed., & A. Data, Compiler) Huffington Post Canada. Retrieved from http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2012/11/20/generation-y-canada-millennials-graphic-infographic_n_2136838.html

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