November 03, 2004

Youth Vote Does Not Add Up

I thought the Youth Vote and the Internet went together like peas and carrots. I was really excited about young voter turnout. It appears all the hype was for nothing; it’s just like what happened with Dean in Iowa during the primaries. Everyone waited for the youth vote powered by the Dean machine.... and waited... and nothing.

How can Declare Yourself, a group that was instrumental in getting young people registered, come out with a release so late in the afternoon that begins like this:

Defying predictions of youth apathy, more than half of eligible young voters (51.6%) showed up at the polls yesterday, according to data compiled by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), obtained by national exit polls.

In reality it went more like this from SFGate:
Fewer than one in 10 voters Tuesday were 18 to 24, about the same proportion of the electorate as in 2000, exit polls indicated. Still, with voter turnout expected to be higher overall, more young people appeared to have come out.

Meanwhile Rock the Vote Rock the Vote is keeping track of how many young people voted and why you voted.

That should take all but about 5 minutes considering the poor turnout.

Confused...

Posted by Buzz Webster at November 3, 2004 06:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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