The Accidental Mootivator Analysis

Young voters aged 18-24 are historically less likely to cast a vote in elections. The percentage of youth who vote is almost little to nothing compared to the percentage of older individuals who turn out to vote. Why is that? Why don 't young people vote? Is there some motivator that would cause a young person to vote? Single issue voting has increasingly become a popular trend in America, could that be a motivator? Robert Winsler’s "The Accidental Motivator: Florida 's Medicinal Marijuana Ballot Initiative 's Impact on the Youth Vote," sought out to understand whether a single issue and preconceived beliefs on certain topics such as marijuana could be that motivator. Winsler’s study specifically involves Florida 's 2014 Amendment 2 election, …show more content…
The way the researcher operationalizes the independent variable is by setting up a questioner. There were three main research questions; will medicinal marijuana be a single issue that primarily motivates voting? Do preconceived beliefs about marijuana use affect the decision to vote? Lastly, does the act of voting fulfill a need? These students were asked a series of open-ended questions on a questionnaire. The questionnaire was divided into multiple sections. Preconceived beliefs, where students were asked questions based on their thoughts on marijuana use. Next, political involvement, students were asked to describe how politically involved they were. The last section was the decision to vote; students were asked to describe the reason they vote. This questionnaire is used to help contribute to thoughts other researchers have that, single issue voting and preconceived beliefs are a motivation of …show more content…
Marijuana use was not a strong enough indicator of motivation to vote, but based on answers given by students other single issues would motivate them. "I would go vote for abolishing the death penalty," said a 21-year-old female. "Military, especially something to do with budget cuts. I would go oppose that," said a 22-year-old male. Many of the students had preconceived beliefs about marijuana use, but again that wasn 't an indicator of motivation to vote.
The dependent variable in this study is whether young people would vote or not. The questionnaire concluded that the students would consider some single issues influential enough for them to evoke such behavior but marijuana wasn 't that one important issue that would compel them to vote. Students were concerned with single issues that pertained to them or that they cared more