Here's a clue about what's wrong with the American electorate - wow!
http://www.ifyouonlynews.com/politics/texas-tech-students-give-jaw-droppingly-shocking-answers-political-questions-video/Texas Tech students scored a big fail when a non-partisan campus group surveyed them on political questions. The new student group PoliTech released a video on YouTube called, “Politically-Challenged,” that according to one of the school’s professors is “jaw-droppingly shocking” because of the ignorance that the students display.
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They probably don't even know when elections are being held! 
And, is the water distilled, or are there dissolved ions in it? 
How many digits to the right of decimal points would you like for the number of days in a year?
Knowledge is relative.
of what we get from the news isn't about the issues, but about politics, political horseraces, or the latest outrageous lie from some wingnut. Similarly, I found this report extremely alarming at just how uninformed/misinformed we are as a society. 
Get your facts right: Italy, U.S. come bottom in modern life survey
By Ben Hirschler
LONDON Wed Oct 29, 2014 6:55am IST
(Reuters) - Italians and Americans score worst when it comes to correctly assessing basic facts of modern life, such as what proportion of the population are immigrants or Muslims and what percentage of teenage girls get pregnant.
Swedes and Germans do best, although even they consistently get things wrong, according to a survey of 14 industrialised countries released on Wednesday.
The analysis by market research organisation Ipsos MORI shows how far perceptions stray from reality across a range of issues as people struggle to get a precise handle on aspects of society that are seen as risks or worries.
Levels of immigration -- a hot-button topic in many developed countries -- are overestimated everywhere but the United States veers further from reality than most, with an average guess that 32 percent of the population are immigrants when the reality is 13 percent.
Americans think 24 percent of girls aged 15 to 19 give birth each year, when the real figure is just 3 percent, and even the sensible Swedes are badly out, believing the annual teenage pregnancy rate is 8 percent compared to the actual 0.7 percent.
The ramifications of widespread ignorance about basic measures of what is happening in society are unclear but they could potentially influence behaviour and undermine rational political debate.
If, as the survey found, people routinely underestimate the proportion of the population that votes in elections, there may be a persistent downward drift in voter turnout.
http://in.reuters.com/article/2014/10/29/global-politics-attitudes-idINKBN0II02L20141029
I just have to chuckle when I read all these complicated reasons why young people don't vote. I think we all know the reason, and it ain't complicated at all. 
