Young Denver residents get out the vote in Park Hill in in November 2008. (Denver Post file photo)
Re: “Yikes! 18-year-olds getting ready to vote,” July 17 Colorado Voices column.
Olivia Friedman’s opinion piece on first-time voters is a wake-up call for Colorado school districts to teach all high school seniors the ins and outs of the bedrock of our democracy: voting. And each high school should have handouts for each high school senior, stating: “You can register to vote or change your address at www.govotecolorado.com, or you can go to your county clerk’s election division and complete and return the voter registration form there. Do it as soon as you turn 18. Be a proud Colorado voter and supporter of democracy.”
As for evaluating candidate positions, it is a good idea first to look up their party’s platform and then the platform of the candidate, and then determine which party and candidate best fits your political beliefs.
Gwyn Green, Golden
This letter was published in the July 26 edition.Other children of the ’60s likely found Olivia Friedman’s Colorado Voices piece as exhilarating as I did. What we were handed back then as regular high school curricula — American history, geography, civics, political science — assumed that an informed citizen was something to be, something the country needed. Apparently Olivia agrees, but she didn’t get the full voter’s manual that goes with democracy. Instead she’s left sorting out America like unpacking and assembling Ikea furniture for the first time.
Blowing off voting as being duped by power brokers and their shills (a self-fulfilling prophecy), as so many of my 20- and 30-something friends do, isn’t so much apathy as anxious defensiveness. A cynicism researcher at Boston College, Dr. Philip Mirvis, explains that cynics’ dim views “protect them from what they imagine to be the slings and arrows of hustlers and higher-ups.” Only informed voting can do that when it comes to government.
Don’t leave it to polarized “grown-ups,” Olivia, even if DIY is the only way!
Jack Unruh, Denver
This letter was published in the July 26 edition.How ironic. Olivia Friedman recognizes the importance of being prepared to vote and suggests our public education shoud help meet that need.
Back in the dark ages, didn’t we have a high school class called civics that did just that?
Trent Winegar, Evergreen
This letter was published in the July 26 edition.
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