Democrats may well have young voters to thank ...

From the YDA:

The Tucson Citizen editorialized about youth vote turnout this morning.

“In several recent elections, young voters have been most notable by their absence. However, that may have begun changing in last week’s election.”

“People under age 30 have traditionally been among the least likely to vote. But a CNN exit poll conducted last week showed turnout of voters age 18 to 29 rose.”

“Twenty-four percent of young voters cast ballots; 21 percent voted in the 2002 midterm election.”

“The exit poll found that those voters were likely to vote for Democrats: 60 percent of young voters said they voted for Democrats, compared with 38 percent who said they voted for Republicans.”

“Democrats may well have young voters to thank in part for their success in Arizona and nationally, where they won control of Congress.”

“Turnout among young voters has always been low, and last week’s numbers aren’t stellar. But upward movement is welcome, regardless of party loyalty.”

Youth Turnout in Election Biggest in 20 Years

Reposted from YDA
which Reposted from NY Times
which Reposted from REUTERS

Young Americans voted in the largest numbers in at least 20 years in congressional elections, energized by the Iraq war and giving a boost to Democrats, pollsters said on Wednesday.

About 24 percent of Americans under the age of 30, or at least 10 million young voters, cast ballots in Tuesday’s elections that saw Democrats make big gains in Congress. That was up 4 percentage points from the last mid-term elections in 2002.

"This looks like the highest in 20 years," said Mark Lopez, research director of the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, which compiled the data based on exit polls. "Unfortunately, we can’t say if it’s a record because don’t have good comparable data before 1986."

Rock the Vote, a youth-and-civics group, said young voters favored Democrats by a 22-point margin, nearly three times the margin Democrats earned among other age groups and dealing a potentially decisive blow to Republicans in tight races.

"The turnout was awesome," said 21-year-old Katryn Fraher, a political science major at the University of New Mexico who helped build a giant map of local polling stations for her school and was among a group of students walking the campus on Tuesday with a blackboard that counted down the time to vote.

But despite the big turnout, it may not be a record.

In the 1982 mid-term election during the Reagan administration, youth turnout reached 27 percent, but that was among voters aged between 18 to 24 instead of under 30 as measured by Wednesday’s exit poll estimates.

Republican pollster Ed Goeas said young voters could have swayed a number of tight races on Tuesday, noting that of 28 seats Democrats picked up from Republicans in the 435-member House of Representatives, 22 were won by less than 2 percent of the vote and 18 were won by just 5,000 votes or less.

"The increase in the youth vote did come into play," he said.

GETTING OUT THE VOTE

As Republicans fought to keep control of Congress, both parties sought to rally young voters who turned out in record numbers in the 2004 presidential election.

At the University of Iowa, some students doubled as "Human Vote Billboards" with messages exhorting students to vote in the battleground state where Democrats won several races.

"It went well," said Brant Miller, 24, at the University of Iowa. "We got a bunch of students to get out there and vote."

Added Kelly Dolan, 24, at the University of Rhode Island: "The only way we can make politicians pay to attention to people our age is if we turn out in record numbers."

A poll by Harvard University's Institute of Politics last week showed that by a three-to-one margin, young Americans said the country was on the "wrong track."

Forty-six percent favored a total troop withdrawal from Iraq within a year, while a third said troops should be withdrawn after the Iraqis take full control.

Future elections could also be at stake. The "Generation Y" of Americans born from 1977 to 1994—shaped by the September 11 attacks, the Iraq war and Hurricane Katrina—in nine years will make up a third of the electorate.

A Concrete Solution to Pollution

Slashdot: "With concerns over global warming and pollution control reaching an all-time high, an Italian company has developed an interesting solution. It is called TX Active: a concrete that literally breaks down pollutants in the air. The effects are significant: 'In large cities with persistent pollution problems caused by car emissions, smoke from heating systems, and industrial activities, both the company and outside experts estimate that covering 15% of all visible urban surfaces (painting the walls, repaving the roads) with products containing TX Active could abate pollution by up to 50%.' Even more significant is that the cost is only 30% over that of normal concrete. Remarkable."

Around the nation, young voters tune out -- but not in Kentucky

Read the full article in the KY Post:

The percentage of young voters in Kentucky who have cast ballots during mid-term elections such as today's, when the office of president is not on the ballot, has risen steadily for nearly three decades. The interest in elections among young voters in Kentucky has grown while turnout among younger voters across the country has declined since 1982.

If the upward trend in Kentucky holds true this year, voters like Sandfoss could have an enormous impact on the outcome of a number of hotly contested races on the ballot today, political analysts say.

"If that trend continues, they would be much more of a force than I think almost anyone would expect," said Michael Baranowski, a political science professor at NKU. "They could be especially important if they swing decidedly one way or another."

Nationwide, turnout among voters between the ages of 18 and 29 has been falling steadily for years. In the last mid-term election in 2002, turnout among young voters across the country was 22 percent, down from 26 percent in 1994 and 32 percent in 1982, according to the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement, which tracks the political engagement of young Americans.

The numbers in Ohio mirror the decline nationwide. Turnout among young voters in the Buckeye State was 21 percent in 2002, down from 24 percent in 1994 and roughly 33 percent in 1982.

Kentucky is a different story, however. Thirty percent of young voters turned out in the Bluegrass State in 2002, up from 17 percent in 1994 and roughly 16 percent in 1978. In fact, except for a slight dip in 1994, young voter turnout has risen steadily in Kentucky since 1978, according to an analysis by the center.

Kentucky Secretary of State Trey Grayson's office is at a loss to explain why. Grayson's office launched an initiative three years ago, along with the judicial and legislative branches of government and the state's universities, to encourage more young people to get involved in the civic process. But that would not explain the longer upward trend.

One explanation might be that counties and many communities in Kentucky tend to be smaller, which means there's a greater chance that voters might personally know someone who is on the ballot, said Grayson spokesman Les Fugate.

"That might be one reason why it would push you to go vote at a younger age," Fugate said.

In normal mid-term elections it is mostly older, hard-core partisans who go to the polls. But with so many hotly contested House and Senate races on the ballot this year, young voters have a real chance to make a difference, analysts say.

With that in mind, Web sites like Facebook (www.facebook.com) and organizations like Rock the Vote (www.rockthevote.com) are trying to engage the nation's 41.9 million eligible voters between the ages of 18 and 29.

Facebook, which is popular among students and young professionals, was founded two years ago with the aim of connecting people through social networks. Now it has more than 9.5 million registered users in more than 40,000 geographic, work-related, collegiate and high school networks.

Already more than a million users are engaged in campaign issue groups or in supporting candidates, Facebook spokeswoman Brandee Barker said.

Facebook launched its "Election 2006 network" on Sept.1 and put online 1,400 profiles of congressional and other candidates. A few weeks later it started "Election Pulse," a page that ranks candidates and tallies top campaign issues by how many supporters each has.

"Election 2006 was started to give younger voters a voice," Barker said. "They are very active with their opinions on the site."

Rock the Vote, a nonprofit, non-partisan organization dedicated to building political power for young people, joined forces with Facebook in early October in an attempt to spread political awareness and register voters.

Already, the organization has registered 2,300 young people to vote through Facebook, and 12,500 Facebook members have joined Rock the Vote, said Hans Riemer, political director of Rock the Vote.

Sandfoss said he became interested in politics while a student at Bishop Brossart High School in Alexandria. Like him, a lot of other young people have developed an interest in politics because they see how it affects their lives, he said.

"I think that, in the last 10 or 15 years, young people have begun to realize their vote does matter and they do need to stand up for what they believe in," he said. "Otherwise, things are going to happen and people are going to be elected that they may not agree with.''

The war in Iraq - and the Bush administration's shifting explanations about why it was necessary - brought that point home to a lot of young people, Sandfoss said.

"When you have friends going over there, it makes you think, 'Why exactly are they going over there?'" he said. "It's just a very hard thing to deal with.''

Facebook has been a very big hit in this year's election, and more candidates need to jump on board now that it's open to everyone. Its the only way that a candidate can really capture the youth vote. Not only do they need to join it, they need to actively work to update it, which lets everyone know what they're up to - take Evan Bayh here in Indiana, for example. More close to home, the high school push is really the best way to explain the growing youth vote. At Holmes High School in Covington, we founded the Young Democrats Club a few years back which gets students involved in the political process even before they can vote and in the classes we give bonuses to students who register to vote when they turn 18. The school was also very open to our "Freedom's Answer" chapter that we brought there after some of us came back from Boys' State, where we had heard about it. The teachers also pass along information about stuff happening in the community, like the Just Go Vote non-partisan phone bank in the 2004 election. All of this happens in Kentucky public schools where Civics courses aren't even required (or offered). If you could get this kind of roots-up effort in other states, you would see the youth vote growing nationwide, but you're not because priorities are elsewhere (see the "No Child Left Behind, Should be left behind" campaign issue on Facebook).

Big win for College Democrats / Young Democrats in Indiana

All of the major candidates that we campaigned for won this year! Congratulations to everyone who campaigned for:

• Brad Ellsworth in Indiana's 8th District (Terre Haute to Vincennes covered by Rose-Hulman College Dems, ISU College Dems)



• Baron Hill in Indiana's 9th District (Bloomington to the Ohio River covered by IU College Dems)



• Joe Donnelly in Indiana's 2nd District (South Bend to Kokomo covered by College Dems of Notre Dame)



• Peter Visclosky in Indiana's 1st District



• Julia Carson in Indiana's 7th District

Let's make sure these new US Reps remember who got them elected. Have your chapters schedule meetings with them at least once a school year! Make sure they know our views! :-)

Republican has to convince voters that he's a Dem to win in the newly-blue Indiana

From the Tribune Star:

"William Treadway, chairman of the Vigo County Republican Party, was pleased with the overall voter turnout.

“I am very happy to have new candidates on the ballot, even though they were not victorious in their first time out, but it shows we have a lot of interest in the party,” Treadway said.

Treadway said winning the Vigo County prosecutor’s race was “monumental, the first time there has been a Republican prosecutor since Eric Abel. It shows once again that for two straight elections, in 2004 with Mike Morris on the County Council and now in 2006, with the prosecutor, that a Republican can win countywide.

“It is not a fluke. It is a fantastic thing to help build the party,” Treadway said.

The Democrat chairman said the election of a Republican in the prosecutor’s office does not suggest a break in the Democratic party in the county.

“I don’t believe having one Republican win suggests a fracture. There are different issues in each of the races. I think it indicates that voters took into consideration issues in that campaign and that is how they voted. If I look at the other races, the suggestion is the Democratic Party is alive and well and strong in Vigo County,” Etling said.

For those of you who weren't out in the community for the past month campaigning (the two chairs in this article, for example) it's important to note that Modesitt somehow convinced a lot of the Dems that he was one of them. As I made phone calls and talked to people door-to-door, straight party Dems would say, "You don't have to worry about me, I'm voting for Modesitt, Lewis, Ellsworth" and so on. These people had no idea that Modesitt was not a Dem. Modesitt, who was running for County Prosecutor here in Vigo County against Democrat Sarah Mullican, dropped off signs in Democratic communities and left newsletters on doorsteps with articles suggesting that he was not a Republican. Very sly.