New & Young voters still only 17% of the total vote
 

Polls show that in this election the percentage of young voters(18-25) didn't change. Every time it is always expected to be higher because there are efforts made to get young people out there to vote. But while the total number of young voters that showed up was higher...so was the total number of all other voters. So this means that young/first time voters still only occupy 17% of the total vote.

So can anyone think of something that could get more young people involved?

MTV and big time celebrities obviously aren't the key. But hey, I appluad their efforts.

Perhaps if the candidates spent more time and effort addressing the issues that are important to young people---maybe that could help. But then that's a gamble. If you spend too much time, effort, and money on young voters and they still don't show up...then you've just wasted time effort and money.

Most people think that young voters lean more toward the democratic side...and that may be true. But do they actually go to the polls?

$500 fine for not voting, like in Australia.

I really have no clue what to do for the morons that wont vote. Registered at 60% but voting at 17%.

Of course I can only guess why the rate is low but I think it is because they don't see a lot of issues that really effect them. I am 28 and this is the first year that I have voted. Until this year I didn't feel there were issues that effected me. Of course I know is absolutely wrong, but it is how I felt.

I ask this too, because I am in the 18-25 range and I vote...so do all of my friends. I was old enough in the 2000 election but was unable to vote due to a problem with my absentee ballot. They told me I did it wrong or something. I had a vote that did not count in that election...so this time I made sure that I did, and I voted early.

Although I must admit...even though I tried to vote then I only recently became interested in politics when I worked on the campaign for Haley Barbour (Gov. of Mississippi). And I also (minimally) worked for the Trent Lott re-election campaign (went door to door and stuff). So I guess I became interested in politics during college....however I registered pretty much the day I turned 18 and participated in all of the local elections and stuff.

So I guess I just don't understand why people don't vote...because I voted even when I wasn't as interested.

Gee, what might've happened to all the young voters?
 

Gee, what might've happened to all the young voters?

In this article from Opinion Journal, the blame is shared by Nixon, Roe v Wade, and abortion:



Gee, what might've happened to all the young voters? Well, consider this: You're not allowed to vote unless you've passed your 18th birthday. In order to have any birthdays at all, you have to have been born. And over the past 30 years or so, many Americans have ended up not being born.

About.com lists the number of abortions in the U.S. each year starting in 1973, "based on assumptions by the Alan Guttmacher Institute." If we add up the numbers from 1975-86, we come up with approximately 17.5 million missing eligible voters between 18 and 29 years old. Exit polls found that voters this age who were born went for Kerry over Bush, 54% to 45%, while Bush had a majority in all other age groups. If it's true that women who have abortions tend to be more liberal than those who don't, then the unborn 18- to 29-year-olds likely would have favored the Democrat even more heavily.

Roe v. Wade, the 1973 decision mandating legal abortion nationwide, was written by Justice Harry Blackmun, a Nixon appointee. Perhaps somewhere old Tricky Dick is smiling at how his judicial legacy helped the Republicans.

Hahahaha . . .

In that case Republicans should be in full support of Roe v. Wade, since they wouldn't be getting elected without it.

But there is some truth to this, I bet. We were discussing earlier how it's always the crazy uber-conservative & traditional Christian Right/Catholic/Mormon families that have 10 kids. I bet liberals are more likely to remain childless or have fewer children than conservatives. I'd like to see a statistic on the average number of kids of a Bush voter versus a Kerry voter . . .

This is based on exit polls. This is one of the least proven methods ever out there and the media runs with it.

Has anyone seen a percentage based on actual votes? Can they even track that?

Also, many youth send in absentee ballots which weren't counted in the 17%.

The thing about conservative youth and right-wing youth (one is different from the other) is that they've become much more organized and effective. The Reagan Youth movement is legendary in that aspect and was alive in this election even.

-Rudey

True. But I'm willing to bet if they could track it, that not much changed. Young people just don't vote. Why, I don't know.

Because they are not being taxed, they are not in families, they are not working or running their own busineses, etc.

-Rudey

Is that also why they tend to be liberal? ;)

I kid because I love.

Yeah, I think they feel that won't be affected either way.

i heard that while record number of young people voted, there was also a record in the other age groups. so that is why there was not a change.

Because there were record numbers of all voters. The percentage just didn't change.

Oh yeah...that's what you said. Nevermind...I misread your post.

I have no research or anything to back this up, but I have to wonder if people that age feel kind of helpless about what goes on in the world. Before 18, most decisions are made for you and you just have to go along with things. You haven't made a whole lot of big decisions for yourself. Professors in college still treat you like juveniles (like having attendance policies) and the college environment gives you little control over anything (they are very dictatorlike toward their customers, the students). Maybe they think they can't really make a difference because nobody listens to their opinions or lets them act like adults most of the time.

Dee

Depends on the proportion of rich Bush voters vs. poor Bush voters. As the socioeconomic status rises, the number of children per household decreases. Although I'm sure that those religious families you mentioned do their part to swing the numbers in favor of lots of baby Republicans.

You're comparing two different things. It said that the 18-25 group only made up 17% of the TOTAL number of voters. Other sources have our age group at 18.4% which is about a 2% increase from 2000.

According to much of what I've seen, turnout within the age group was in the 50-60% range which isn't bad. It' just that we don't make up a huge percentage of the overall population.

I don't know why young people aren't voting. I myself am 23 and I voted... I also voted when I was 19. (Yes I am one of those people that only votes for president... Guilty as charged). Maybe they really don't think the issues affect them, or maybe they just don't care enough.

Of course you have the 18-22 year-olds who are away at college and forget to request their absentee ballots.

Does this mean a lot of young people will be killed by puffy? yay, puffy saves social security!


ETA: look guys, before we bust conjecture out here, let's think about such questions as "what % do young voters make up of the total electorate/nation/region" and "do they really vote in significantly lower numbers than other demographics?" and "are these consistent nationwide?" am i RIGHT

the student government association at our school came out in full force and tried to get students to sign up and register. they came out with free food and music. you had to register to get a ticket for free food. a bunch of people showed up, but they probably came just for the free food.

also, most of these kids are away from home at college and probably didnt bother requesting absentee ballots. so they didnt vote.

It would probably be an inverted bell curve. People with no children are more likely to vote Democratic. People who are more educated and more affluent are more likely to vote Republican. People who are more educated and affluent have fewer children than other people who have children.

Younger people are far less capable at dealing with bureaucracies, and the whole electoral process is bureaucratic.

Once someone has voted once, that person is more likely to vote again. As you sample an older age group, you will see more people who have finally voted at least once.

You're right about that. I had two co-workers who voted for the first time and talked about how nervous they were about it, and they were in their mid 30's. They probably will be more likely to vote in the future because they know what it's like now.

Dee

Hmm. We learned in AP Gov that More education -> More Liberal
More money -> More Conservative

More education = Less Money = Liberal ;)

It depends I guess.

CNN's exit polls

Break down who voted for who by education level, gender, thoughts on the issues, etc.

for "Post-Graduate Education" it was Bush 44%, Kerry 55%

Other than "Party Affiliation", the best predictors, demographically, seem to be whether you attended church weekly or not, and whether you are homosexual or not.

Check it out! I found it fascinating.

Dee

Thanks for the link, Dee.

The religion aspect was interesting to me, as well as the other factors.

So here's what I got:

I've read a number of articles that said that young voter turnout increased in swing states, but not in the non-swing states. In which case I can't really blame them. I know the youth vote increased here in Wisconsin.

I also read that it's misleading to say that "the youth vote was the same percentage as the last election" because it was only the same percentage of the overall turnout -- and given the increased turnout, it was actually 54% of eligible young voters, as opposed to 40% in 2000, who voted this time around.

True? Partially true?

honeychile.. That's my understanding as well. A higher percentage of eligible young voters voted, but it made up the same percentage of the total number of voters because more eligible voters voted altogether.

ETA: I'm curious as to the percentage of people in that age range in the US, but I'm too tired to look it up. Do they make up about 17% of the total population?

From moore's web site.,

Sunday, November 7th, 2004
The Kids Are Alright

Dear Friends,

If there was one group who really came through on Tuesday, it was the young people of America. Their turnout was historic and record-setting. And few in the media are willing to report this fact.

Unlike 2000 when Gore and Bush almost evenly split the youth vote (Gore: 48%, Bush: 46%), this year Kerry won the youth vote in a LANDSLIDE, getting a full ten points more than Bush (Kerry: 54%, Bush: 44%).

Young people were the ONLY age group that voted for Kerry. In every other age group (30-39, 40-49, 50-59, etc.), the majority voted for Bush.

In my state of Michigan, observers noted that it was the record youth vote that helped to put Kerry over the top in the state (AP: "Young Voters Played Big Role in Kerry's Michigan Victory")

Contrary to all predictions and to tradition, MORE young adults (18-29) voted in last week's election than in any other since 18-year-olds were given the right to vote in 1972.

It was the first time that a MAJORITY of all young adults came out to the polls: 51.6%.

Young adult turnout was UP more than 9% higher than the 2000 election ("Big Voter Turnout Seen Among Young People").

4.7 million MORE young adults voted in this election than in the last one. All these numbers are likely to go up when the millions of provisional ballots (and absentee ballots) are counted later this week (it is believed that young people were among the hardest hit in being forced to vote provisionally and students away at college make up a large bulk of the absentee ballots).

Rock the Vote and MTV's "Choose or Lose" had set the seemingly unattainable goal of getting 20 million young people out to vote. In the end, nearly 21 million youth voters cast their ballots last Tuesday -- A RECORD.

From the beginning, I believed that young adults and "slackers" would rise up in this election. As we began our slacker tour in Syracuse's football stadium on September 20, we could tell that this election would be like no other. It was no longer uncool to talk politics like it was five or ten years ago. Now, you were considered a loser if you didn't know what was going on in the world.

After speaking to the 10,000 gathered in Syracuse, we went on to hold rallies in 63 cities, mostly on campuses. Every night the events were packed, with anywhere from 5,000 to 15,000 people showing up. We registered thousands to vote and got tens of thousands more to sign up to volunteer with Move On, ACT, the College Dems and other groups like Vote Mob and the League of Pissed Off Voters. We reached perhaps a half-million people in person and millions more on local TV and radio in those 63 cities (all but three of them in swing states).

To be honest, this tour was a killer and not the easiest thing to do for a guy who isn't 18-29. Two (sometimes three) cities a day for over a month, crisscrossing the country, is enough to make you want to sleep for a year. But I was deeply inspired by what I saw. The level of dedication and commitment amongst everyday, average citizens was overwhelming. Each night from the stage I could see it in people's eyes that they were not going to give up -- and they, too, would not rest until Bush was removed from the White House.

In every town, this movement was being fueled and often led by young people. I don't ever want to hear another adult talk about how apathetic the youth are or how they don't have "it" in them. What you are about to see in the coming months is going to shock you. These kids aren't going away. They have a resilience that cannot be snuffed out by older people's whining and moaning about the state of America. THEIR America has yet to be formed as they see it, and this one setback is not going to stop them.

Witness the students at Boulder High School in Boulder, Colorado on Thursday, two days after the election. These kids can't even vote yet but that was not going to get in their way of expressing their outrage over what we adults had just done. The high school students took over the school by staging a sit-in and would not leave the building. They stayed there all Thursday night. They told the media that they were protesting the election results and putting Bush on notice that there was no way they were going to allow the draft to come back. It was the most uplifting moment of the week.

In the day after the election, the pundits were spewing their hot air about how the youth vote didn't matter this year. I wonder, even though they have the same facts available to them as I do -- the ones I've cited above -- do they just chose to ignore them because it doesn't fit into their tired old routine they call "conventional wisdom." I guess it is easier to simply repeat the same broken down clichés than it is to find out what the truth really is.

And it's even more important to kill what smells like teen spirit to them. God forbid if young people ever realized their true power and used it. Maybe what young adults need to continue to do is keep creating their own new media and news sources on the Internet and through other new technologies. Just bypass the old farts on Fox and CNN and all the rest. One thing's for sure -- by never challenging this president on his lies that sent our young off to war, they have proven which side they are on and it isn't on the side of the young or the future.

Congratulations, 18 to 29-year-olds -- you rocked.

Yours,

Michael Moore
www.michaelmoore.com
MMFlint@aol.com (if full, try mike@michaelmoore.com)

mtv news said that the total increase among all voters was 17% but the "young" voters increased 22%. They defined young as 18-29 though, which is a bit generous to me...

also, mtv news isnt really a credible news source, so i dont know what to think...

I personally don't look at percentages when seeing if someone (or a group) did "something" more than in the past. Looking at concrete numbers, such as the ACTUAL number of votes cast by young voters this election versus the actual number case by young voters last election, seems to me to be a much more realistic gauge as to determining if there's been an increase in something.

But maybe that's just my analytical mind ticking away....;) :p

I wish Moore would stop calling Michigan "his" state... he and Dr. Kervorkian are two infamous Michiganders that we would rather do without!

IMO, Kevorkian is a shining example of mercy and dignity.

I agree with his beliefs, but the way that he went about it left no dignity for his "patients". We were constantly hearing news reports in Michigan of bodies being dumped at ER along with video tapes of their deaths. Sometimes they were just left in a car near the ER entrance. I completely agree that someone with a terminal illness should be able to move on to their next chapter of life without the law interfering, but his methods of bringing attention to his cause were extreme and only hurt him in the long run.

Dee

I hate these types of statistics. Really I hate statistics all together. Most people take them on their face and have no idea how they were obtained or calculated and therefore what they actually reflect. One of my statistics textbook was titled "how to lie with statistics" and that is what I see played out over and over when the media uses these numbers as catchy sound bites. Nisrepresentations backed up wiht questionable statistics.

Who are they polling? Where are they polling? I have voted in every election since I was 18 (nearly 15 years) and never once even seen anyone doing an exit poll where I am. Of course my most recent district is primarily African American and that might make it look like too many African Americans are actually voting o why poll there. :rolleyes: How can you gauge the number of young people voting without looking at their use of absentee ballots? Many of these first time voters were college students who had to vote absentee. How can you say they did not vote based on exit polls?