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Noon Edition

The Election In Voter's Voices

voters

As we approach the general election, it  seems like voters' perspectives can be lost among talking heads and media coverage.

Last week, there was a substantial amount of attention on Indiana's primary. GOP candidates Senator Ted Cruz and Governor John Kasich dropped out of the race after losing the state to Donald Trump. There was speculation that Senator Bernie Sanders could have been winding his campaign down against Hillary Clinton before he won the Democratic primary in Indiana.

This week on Noon Edition, we discussed your perspectives on the Indiana primary, the upcoming national conventions, and general election.

Indiana University School of Public and Environmental Affairs Professor, Brad Fulton says that he sees many of his students reject the current political system because of how much of a mess it seems to be.

"It seems like the fallout of that is disillusionment among the voting public with the whole system," he says. "Or even sort of a withdrawal from the process of being involved. I work with students at IU, and the number of students wanting to go into public service working for the government is going down."

One of our panelists, Beth Schroeder says that despite this gridlock we see in our government, voting is our most important tool in making actual change.

"Our IU Men and Women's Basketball Teams don't walk off the floor when the referees aren't in their favor, you know, you don't give up the game, and we've got to stay with this all the way through every election is very important and I think we can all encourage every voter to go the distance on this one," she says.

All of our panelists agreed that it can be important to go beyond soundbites and traditional coverage when voting. Former City Council Member Brad Wisler says the Internet can both be a source of information or just noise.

"You can find what most people are going to see on your Facebook feed, you know, your memes that aren't going to tell you much of anything that are just going to get you fired up, but if you are willing to spend a little time, you can watch entirety of every speech, every interview," he says. "You can really dig deep on the issues and get a glimpse of what they're really like, not just in front of a crowd."

Presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump was a major topic of discussion in our show this week. Republican leaders like Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell and  chairman of the Republican National Convention, Reince Priebus have endorsed Trump. Former presidents, George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush, have said they will not attend the Republican National Convetion in Cleveland. House speaker Paul Ryan met with Trump on Thursday. Our panelist Kurt Young says Ryan is trying to juggle a variety of issues when it comes to endorsing, or not endorsing Trump.

"He's trying to straddle a very fine line. Members of his caucus are Trump supporters, members that don't like him [Trump], won't support him. I think, at this point, the Republican party is confused about what to do with this guy," he says.

We'll have our panel of voters on again as the election cycle progresses to see how their views change.

Our guests:

Brad Fulton

Beth Schroeder

Kurt Young

Brad Wisler

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