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The Youth Vote
"Tara and other young voters are being celebrated by get-out-the-vote organizers, who say this was the biggest youth turnout in more than a decade."
By Belia Mayeno
Many pundits are saying the youth vote didn’t make the mark it was expected to – pushing John Kerry over the edge to win. Get out the vote groups like Rock the Vote and MTV’s Choose or Lose say that analysis misses the point. Youth Radio’s Belia Mayeno reports.
The numbers are tricky. Four point six million more young people voted in this Presidential election compared to the last. But, the overall percentage of the youth vote is about the same - because there were more voters of all ages at the polls on Tuesday.
Rock the Vote President Jehmu Greene says if young people are paying attention to all the talking heads downplaying the impact of the youth vote … they might be getting turned off to politics.
JEHMU
I think this is one of the problems with actually trying to get young people to vote, because the media has been such a group of doubters and haters…if that’s the message the media drives, they’re gonna make it true.
BELIA
MTV’s Choose or Lose had a goal of 20 million voters between the ages of 18 and 30 and it was surpassed…with almost 21 million young people going to the polls. And, by the way—the youth vote was split, with 54 percent voting for Kerry and 44 percent for Bush, according to the research group CIRCLE. Young voters were motivated by issues like jobs, the war in Iraq, and gay marriage. There’s no way to know right now how many young people registered to vote, but never made it to the polls. But for some, it’s still a leap to the ballot box. 21-year-old Tom, from Oakland, California, didn’t want his last name used.
TOM
I’m registered to vote but I’m not voting. I was never planning to.
I’m just not interested in that kind of stuff. It’s not my business.
BELIA
Harvard Professor Thomas Patterson says the gap between being asked to register, and having a genuine desire to vote is what made the youth voter turnout hard to predict, even though organizations like Rock the Vote spent a lot of time and energy on registration.
THOMAS
If one of these organizations for example, descended on an apartment complex, and they filled out addresses, so all the people had to do was enter their name and sign the sheet… but they’re registering not because they took the initiative, but because some other organization took the initiative for them.
BELIA
But some young people, like Oakland’s 21-year-old Tara Jones, felt a responsibility to vote.
TARA
My ancestors fought so much for me as a black woman to be able to vote, so I’m not gonna abuse that right. I don’t know if it makes a difference though.
BELIA
Tara and other young voters are being celebrated by get-out-the-vote organizers, who say this was the biggest youth turnout in more than a decade. At the same time, mainstream pundits are wondering out loud – “what happened to the fabled youth vote?” Everyone’s spinning. But according to Harvard’s Thomas Patterson…if you can get a young adult to participate in a presidential election as soon as they’re eligible, there’s a good chance they’ll vote again.
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