If you want to celebrate your essential right as a citizen and encourage others to do the same,Thank You forVotingprovides an engaging and concise tutorial of what it means to cast your ballotpast, present, and future. Read this book! (And be sure to vote.) Ann PatchettA concise, lively look at voting in America, including insights into why so few Americans today vote and innovative ways to educate and motivate themupdated with a new epilogue analyzing the 2020 election.Voting is a prized American right. The 2018 midterm elections saw record turnoutmore than 110 million Americans cast ballots. Yet about half of those eligible did not participate. Why isnt voter turnout higher, and what can we do about it?The problem, Erin Geiger Smith contends, is a lack of understanding about how our electoral system works and too little appreciation for the power of voting. To inspire action, she looks at the voting process from the Framers perspective through the Voting Rights Act to the present, examining the difficult and inspiring stories of how different groups got the right to vote, state prohibitions against felons voting, charges of fraud and suppression, and new methods to increase voter registration. She explains topics that confuse even the most informed voters: polling, news literacy, gerrymandering, and the Electoral College. And she explores how age, race, and socioeconomic factors influence turnout.Most important, Geiger Smith outlines simple actions everyone should take to increase civic participation in elections, and reveals how innovative get-out-the-vote movements energize first-time voters. Informative and empoweringand with a new epilogue analyzing the 2020 electionThank You for Votingis an essential call to the polls.
