| Dear OZY Tribe, | | Drive-thru McDonalds voting. Walmart election centers. Personal delivery of ballots by your local sheriff. The way we vote is changing ...
… Or not. Because, come Election Day in November 2020, up to 100 million people will stay home — not because they forget (how could you, with wall-to-wall coverage?), nor because they’re simply “lazy” or “apathetic.” But perhaps because they’re angry, disappointed, frustrated by lack of choice, or because they believe that not voting is as big a statement as voting itself.
OZY’s mission is to get under the skin of the headlines you see flying around on a daily basis and take our audience deeper into the new and the next. We’re also proudly multipartisan, giving you both sides of the story.
So, in the runup to next year’s U.S. presidential election, we’re focusing on an important question: Who votes, who doesn’t and why? When people’s opinions of President Trump are so fiercely held, the central question of 2020 comes down not to ‘Who do you support,’ but to: Who Cares?
So far, our reporting has uncovered a rural county in New Mexico that hit 100 percent voter turnout thanks in part to the power of shame. We visited Colorado, the heart of America’s voting potential thanks to innovations like drive-thru voting and direct referendums allowing people to vote on issues that hit home. And we’ve identified America’s “Apathy Belt,” which has seen depressed turnout amid party-switching and corruption.
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We’ve built a first-of-its-kind interactive heat map of voter turnout data across the country in the past four election cycles. Use the map to find your own county, or one that might decide the next election, and explore the trends. To do this, we teamed up with Washington data firm 0ptimus, which helped us put together our smart 2018 election forecasts — in the end, we were one Senate seat and one House seat off from perfect.
We also need your help. Tag @OZY and offer your own tales of #WhyICare — or #WhyIDontCare — on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. Are we headed for historically high voter turnout next year, given America’s political frenzy? Or will those who sit out once again matter most? OZY will be there at every step to light the way. | | | | As always, please reach out and let me know your thoughts, good or otherwise, via managingeditor@ozy.com.
Live curiously,
Fay |
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