“’VOTE OR DIE.’ UNLESS, IT’S TOO HARD TO FIND A STAMP:” Why college students don’t vote absentee? They don’t know where to buy a postage stamp.

A Fairfax County focus group this summer found many college students who have gotten an absentee ballot simply fail to send it back because a U.S. Postal Service stamp seems to be a foreign concept to them.

“One thing that came up, which I had heard from my own kids but I thought they were just nerdy, was that the students will go through the process of applying for a mail-in absentee ballot, they will fill out the ballot, and then, they don’t know where to get stamps,” Lisa Connors with the Fairfax County Office of Public Affairs said.

“That seems to be like a hump that they can’t get across.”

To be fair, it’s now much easier — and safer — to opt out of the US Postal Service than it was 20 years ago.