Salon: "The Future of America is Blue" Overall youth vote up 9.3% in 2004!

[flpoljunkie]

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/11/09/youth_vote/print.html

The future of America is blue
Almost 5 million more young people voted this time, and most went Democratic.


- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Lisa Chamberlain

Nov. 9, 2004  |  Back in the hopeful days of August, a small group of newly minted political activists gathered in an apartment on St. Marks Place in New York's East Village -- the same street where Abbie Hoffman hatched the yippie movement and Andy Warhol opened the Electric Circus. Downtown for Democracy -- an arts-affiliated political action committee staffed mostly by people in their 20s and backed by New York's cultural glitterati -- was only a year old and just getting started. The activists were discussing big plans to get out the youth vote by loading up buses of volunteers and driving to Ohio to throw DJ parties and give away free T-shirts in exchange for voter registrations and contact information. Nearly everyone in the room had never been politically active before, and some had never voted.

<>According to a report by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), almost 5 million more young people voted in 2004 than in 2000, an increase of 9.3 percent. The reason the youth vote as a percentage of the electorate stayed the same is simple: More people in every demographic group voted in 2004. Looking at the youth vote merely as a percentage of the overall vote to gauge their effect on the election is misleading.

"The report that young voters didn't turn out is just so wrong," says Kelly Young, executive director of 21st Century Democrats, an organization that has been working to get out the youth vote since 1985. Having started with a mere $8,000, the group is now the 13th largest PAC in the country. "The youth vote was up nationally, but that's not really the best way to measure it. In swing states, where the youth vote was really targeted, it was up even more." Some estimate it was up there by as much as 12 percent.

Although the final tally has yet to be fully dissected, 21st Century Democrats has dramatic numbers from Franklin County, Ohio, which includes Columbus, home to Ohio State University. In the precincts where the group focused most intently, the youth vote accounted for upward of 85 percent of the total vote, and Democratic turnout in those areas jumped by 128 percent. In the same precincts, the Republican turnout was up only 6 percent. "What it shows is that young voters contributed substantially to the increase in the Democratic vote. Lines at 6:30 a.m. were already an hour long, so students had to really stick with it to vote. The main voting place at Ohio State closed at 7:30. People were still voting at 9:30."

more...

[Woody Box]

1. This is what Zogby predicted:

64:35 pro Kerry among young voters.

According to CNN's (later) exit polls, it was only 54:45.

So what's going on here?

[flpoljunkie]

2. What does Zogby have to say about his prediction? Ohio youth better for JK

56% to 42%. Unfortunately, the young voter turnout was matched by voter turnout in all categories. The GOP really got out the vote through churches and targeted those Republicans who had voted infrequently in the past.

Our #1 priority must be making our voting systems secure, and the sooner the better!

[SemiCharmedQuark]

3. The future of America is blue anyway because of the growing minority pop.

I remember reading on yahoo how by 2050 minorities will be 50% of the population. Freepers were pissed! They were arguing that minorities would cease to be minorities then...um, yeah, whatever.

[zoidberg]

4. Hispanics are getting more and more Republican

It's wishful thinking to assume that Democrats will be OK because minorities are overwhelmingly Democrats. Bush got 44% of the Latino vote this year (CNN exit polls) and there is nothing to say that it won't go up in the future.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

5. Im hispanic and none of my friends, family or relatives voted for Bush.

I seriously doubt that in the end much of the Hispanic vote will be republican as Hispanics are crowded into slums and rounded up to work the menial jobs.