[chimeracoder]

> perhaps young people could be bothered to leave work (which will in a lot of cases cause illegal employer push back) and vote.

If you're going to make an argument about widespread illegal activity, please provide some evidence of that. While there are isolated cases of this happening, there is scant evidence that this is widespread ('a lot of cases').

Remember that, in most states, it's not that you're allowed to take leave whenever you want in order to vote. It's that employers must ensure that you have sufficient time during polling hours to vote (ie, if your shift starts at 9AM, and polls open at 6AM, they have satisfied this requirement). If you do not have sufficient time outside working hours to vote, employers may not punish you for taking time to vote. (Note that this time may be paid or unpaid leave, depending on the state and nature of employment).

The reason young people don't vote is not because of insufficient time off. (If it were, youth voting rates in states like Oregon and Washington, which allow by-mail voting, would be dramatically higher than they currently are. As it is, they're higher than other states, but demographically-adjusted nowhere near what you would expect if insufficient time off were the primary driver of low youth turnout).