Fact vs. Fiction –The Youth Vote in 2004

Posted by jason at November 5, 2004 06:00 PM | TrackBack

Young people representing the under 30 set turned out in record numbers this week to exercise their right to vote despite many of them having to wait hours in line at unprepared polling locations. The Palm Beach Post in Florida and Morning Journal in Ohio report:

"My grandfather is from Cuba and he supported Bush all the way," said Christopher Vazquez, 21, a student at the New World School of the Arts in Miami. "But I voted for Kerry. I thought he rushed into the war, we've got high deficits, and tuition is up. It went up 15 percent this year and they cut back on grants, too."

'We've been here since 5:30,'' said Ted Parker, an 18-year-old Oberlin Conservatory student from Chicago who was still standing in line at 9 p.m. ''It's pretty important this year, I think everyone agrees to that.”

According to an analysis of exit polls and early-vote tallies released on Wednesday by the Center for Information & Research on Civil Learning & Engagement, at the University of Maryland at College Park, at least 20.9 million people ages 18 to 29 voted on Tuesday, an increase of 28 percent, or 4.6 million, over 2000.

Turnout rose by 9.3 percentage points, to 51.6 percent from 42.3 percent four years ago. The previous peak came in 1992, when 47.9 percent of young Americans voted.

Young people voted at a much higher rate in contested, “battleground” states. In the ten most contested states, youth turnout was 64%, up 13 percentage points from 2000. In the battleground states, the youth share of the electorate was 19%. In the remaining 40 states and the District of Columbia, youth turnout was 47% and the youth share of the electorate was 18%.

The days following the November 2nd election have been dominated by misleading stories in the media reporting that turnout among young voters did not reach “expectations” and that the “youth vote” was not a factor because Kerry lost.” The spark that ignited this misinformation was a syndicated Associated Press story published on election night that claimed young voting turnout was “identical to 2000 and represented one in ten voters”. This was story based on exit polling taken earlier in that day and focused exclusively on the 18-24 set. It failed to take into account absentee voting, and confused young voters’ share of the electorate with their percentage of turnout.

This past October Harvard’s Institute of Politics released a poll that found that 42% of college students planned to vote by absentee ballot” The poll also found that nearly “72 percent of college students report that they are "certain" they are registered to vote and "definitely" plan on voting this November," representing, the over nine million college students in America.

Furthermore, in a recent email sent to supporters of Rock the Vote, Washington DC Director Hans Riemer explained that, “Reporters are confusing numbers about young voters’ share of the electorate with their percentage turnout. Their share of the electorate did not increase, but their turnout shot through the roof.”

Not so ironic, the findings in the AP story are now being echoed by many Conservatives in academia and the media, as an attempt to brand this false perception as a referendum on Democrats, and the Kerry campaign. Even in the face of victory conservatives are furious that young people favored Kerry by wide margins, despite an aggressive effort by College Republicans to persuade students towards President Bush, spending over $8 million in 2004. Associate director of Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government David King wrote in recently wrote in an Op/Ed that appeared in the Boston Globe:

According to exit polls, Senator John Kerry won the under-30 set with 54 percent of the vote to President Bush's 44 percent. The Democrats lost every other age group. Without young Democrat voters, President Bush would have rolled to victory in Wisconsin and New Hampshire; Iowa and Nevada, too, would have been much bigger wins for the president.

Still, the question remains unanswered:why were so many polling locations surrounding college campuses unprepared for the expected increase in voter turnout? Making sure voting is accessible to young people is in the long term political interest of the Democratic Party. We must never again allow this to occur to a first time voter:

Thomas White, who at 23 was seeking to vote for the first time, reluctantly gave up after waiting 90 minutes in the rain. When he reached the door of Thurber Towers on Neil Avenue in Victorian Village, he was told the wait would be another two hours.

"I was frustrated and disappointed,'' he said. "This is an election that I wanted to participate in. I can't risk losing my job.''