No, this isn’t a reference to the Seahawks 12th man, but it’s just as exciting – Washington state’s ranking on political engagement!
Some of the folks who have been working campaigns in Washington this season, whether it be on the phone or pounding the pavement, may think that because most pacific northwest voters don’t want to talk about their political preferences, they may not be engaged. Wrong. A new study out by Wallethub ranks Washington as 12th in the nation for political engagement.
The study used several metrics to judge the rankings, including political contributions, number of registered voters, percentage of voters who actually voted in the 2010 and 2012 elections and civics education.
Washington scored in the top 5 in the highest percentage of citizens who voted in the 2010 midterm elections, bringing our ranking up. The study, which also sought to drawing connections between voter engagement and other important metrics, compared political engagement with education, tax fairness and GDP per capita. Washington ranked in the top quarter of states in education (people with a bachelor’s degree or higher) and GDP per capita ranking. Sadly though, and no news to most of us, we ranked 50th in tax fairness.
While our state’s political engagement is near the top, voter participation has been on the decline since the 1960s. Some blame this on a lack of civics education and increased voter apathy. Plus, millennials, as a whole, do not believe that government is a positive way to make change. And there are also discrepancies. Overall, the old vote more that the young, the wealthy more than the poor, and Democrats slightly more than Republicans.
It is clear that our state and our country (we rank 120th out of 169 democratic nations) have a lot of work to do to promote civic engagement. Building a democracy where all citizens have equal voting rights, fair representation and everyone understands the importance of participation is a challenge we should all look to tackle together. The future of our country depends on it!
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