What does it mean to be politically active?
One thing you consistently seem to hear about young people these days is that they donât participate in politics. They donât pay attention to whatâs going on, or they donât care, or even if they do they donât tend to vote in the same numbers older age groups do, but thereâs more to being politically active than just voting, isnât there?
               Voting sure seems to be important, with slogans like âevery vote countsâ or âyour voice, your voteâ and organizations like Rock the Vote. Often when you do vote you get a sticker stating âI voted!â usually with a Bald Eagle or American Flag in the background to symbolize how patriotic of an act it was. A lot of people seem to think that voting is the âHoly Grailâ of political participation.
       But if voting is all it takes then a lot of the U.S., both young and old, isnât politically active, with an estimated 126 million people voting in the 2012 presidential election, over 90 million eligible voters decided, for whatever reason, to not participate[1]. This participation rate goes way down during the midterm elections.[2]Â
               While itâs the flashiest and most important race, thereâs more to American politics than voting for president once every four years. There are local levels like mayors, state levels like Governors or State Senates, and Congressional Elections. Also midterms are extremely important, with all of the 400+ seats in the House of Representatives up for election every two years. While the presidency is important, the President canât do much if the entire House fights him/her every step of the way. Â
               Getting out and voting, I admit, would be the easiest way to participate, but I had to find another way. My scholarship at the University of Hawaii at Manoa requires that I remain an official resident of California, not Hawaii, so voting in the Hawaii Primaries was off the table (I had already voted by mail in Californiaâs Primary, where the most hotly contested issue was a ballot initiative mandating that state legislators should not be paid if they are suspended by a vote of 2/3 of their peers, a situation that came up when a California legislator was literally arrested for selling his vote).Â
               Aside from voting, another âVâ word you hear thrown around a lot is volunteering. Most people would volunteer for a candidateâs campaign, but being an intern for a nonpartisan organization, this was also off the table.
               Thatâs when I heard about the Office of Elections needing volunteers for the Control Center. I knew literally nothing about what it would entail, other than somehow helping with issues during Election Day.  After a brief training session that mainly covered how to use the phone system, we were considered more or less ready for an early start on Election Day.
               Part of me was excited, part of me was nervous. I didnât really have much of an idea what to expect aside from getting the calls and answering the phone. In reality, it was actually pretty easy. 90% of the calls I received were from polling locations where a voter wasnât on their list, which usually meant they moved and forgot to formally change their address, or went to the wrong location. This was remedied by looking up the voter via their name/Social Security Number. Depending on the situation, it was usually fixed by telling them the correct polling location they should have gone to or inputting their updated address into the computer system, which would allow them to vote at the polling location that corresponded with their correct address.
               At the start I was a bit anxious about getting âjuicerâ calls. I had one call where members of the media, who were not on the approved list, were trying to interview people at a polling location, and when asked to leave instead went into the parking lot to continue their interviews. I honestly wish I knew what wound up happening on that call, but the Control Center has a system where anything outside the scope of your training is escalated to management who are better equipped to deal with the problem. Volunteers are more like a dispatcher, they field the calls to see whatâs going on and fix minor problems, but any issues that exceeded our training was referred to election specialists. This was, however, the extent of any âdramaticâ calls that I took that day.
               Despite being there most of the day, it actually went by pretty quickly. Before I knew it we were down to the last hour before the polls closed, and then waiting for those last calls confirming which polling locations had closed down.
               At the end though, I felt something I hadnât expected to. I didnât just participate; I helped other people to participate. I helped people who otherwise wouldnât have been able to vote to voice their opinion (except for the one guy who showed up at the wrong location 3 minutes before the polls closed, there wasnât much we could do there).
        Despite not being able to vote in the Hawaii Primaries, I was able to not only participate in the election, at the State Capitol, but make a difference for voters who were doing what I could not. Even with that âHoly Grailâ well and truly out of my reach, I still managed to do something meaningful in the political process (and I got free food and some cash for it too!). I will be returning to the Control Center in November for Election Day, maybe Iâll see some of you participating there as well. For more information and to sign up please go http://www.commoncause.org/controlcenter
 [1] http://bipartisanpolicy.org/library/2012-voter-turnout/
[2] http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/07/24/voter-turnout-always-drops-off-for-midterm-elections-but-why/
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