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Citizen inaction still an issue in elections

Primary night has come and gone in Illinois, leaving Republican incumbent Bruce Rauner and Democratic candidate J.B. Pritzker to face off in November for the office of governor.

The primary was often talked about in the weeks leading up to the elections Tuesday night – it is only the second primary election of the year in the nation, after all – and the cast of characters was interesting, to say the least. Rauner’s Republican competitive, Jeanne Ives, released a notorious ad in February satirizing teachers, women, transgender individuals and people of color. Republican Arthur Jones ran uncontested to fight Dan Lipinski for the U.S. House District 3 congressional seat – despite the fact he’s a self-described Neo-Nazi.

How did this happen?

Because we let it.

The Scout ran a Twitter poll after the election, asking our Illinois followers if they voted in the election, if they forgot to or if they didn’t vote at all. As of the time of publication, 20 percent of voters said they did vote, 20 percent said they forgot to and 60 percent said they did not vote.

Sure, some people don’t vote because they don’t care for the candidates. Maybe they figure they’ll vote come November. Perhaps voters are unsure of which party they identify with. Or maybe it’s too much work to get an absentee ballot sent to them at school. There was even a debate amongst Scout staff members earlier this week to decide if this year’s candidates were even worthy of Illinoisan’s votes.

Voter turnout amongst Democrats was up 300 percent from the 2014 primary election, according to a report on Vox.com. Republican turnout, however, dropped 30 percent from 2014.

The results of the Republican numbers are disappointing, and those numbers from our poll are unsettling for two reasons. First, people who took it told us firsthand they just didn’t get out to vote, (whether it was because of forgetfulness or refusal). Additionally, at a school of over 4,000 students and a Twitter account with over 1,621 followers, 50 responses aren’t that great, either.

We said this last November. We said it in January when Bradley created its Civic Engagement Committee. We’ll say it again.

Voting isn’t a right – it’s a privilege many around the world don’t have. How can so many of us take that for granted and ignore an election?

Many of us are out-of-state students, and we’ve got our own elections coming up. Let’s hold ourselves accountable for the future. Get out and vote. Democracy isn’t passive – and we shouldn’t be, either.

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