Democrats need to get their base to the polls this November in order to retake Congress, but a key Democratic demographic — young people — aren’t planning on casting a ballot.
So how do you turn “safe space” obsessed college students and coddled young voters to the polls? One Wisconsin “non-partisan” (but definitely not conservative) voter organization is luring them in with therapy dogs.
The University of Wisconsin Madison is famous for its far flung “safe space” policies, which include relabeling “safe spaces” as something else so that students aren’t judged for using them (and because a “safe space” implies exclusion and too many students and faculty felt “left out” by the term). It may come as no surprise, then, that the therapy dogs, long a fixture of collegiate “safe spaces,” snagged plenty of new voters.
“Students returning to the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus this summer were greeted by therapy dogs for petting,” the Associated Press reported. “Those lured by the chance to ruffle a dog’s ears were then asked to register to vote — a ‘Pups to the Polls’ gimmick.”
The pups reportedly did their jobs, but there’s a difference between fattening voter rolls and getting millennials to show up at the voting booths in November. Only about 50% of registered millennial voters plan to take part in the mid-year election, even though they’re among the most energized facets of the “resistance.”
Perhaps the dogs could make a repeat appearance at polling places.