Engaging younger voters: the long-time puzzle
[Front paged: NM]
When I was a college student in Boston nearly 20 years ago, the "Rock the Vote" efforts were in full swing. We were courted by the House of Blues, there were concerts, people tried to make it hip and trendy to vote -- and young people mostly didn't turn out. They still mostly don't. Only about 20% of people 18-25 are regular voters; by comparison, about 90% of people over the age of 65 are. Does it matter if they do participate? Yes. They can change the outcomes of elections, from the Presidentials down to the local races. We could have had President Gore, President Kerry, Congresswoman Burner, State Senator Ward, and Representative Willard, to name a few, if we had figured out how to get more young people engaged, registered, and voting. But we need to figure out how to engage them.
Let me give you some numbers to put it in perspective.
In the 8th District, there are about 53,000 people between the ages of 18 and 24 who are eligible to vote. About 31,000 -- or rougly 3/5 -- have registered to vote. So we start with about 22,000 people who could vote who aren't even registered. How do we get them registered? (New 18th birthday gift: a voter registration form and a copy of a mixed CD Krist puts together with songs by major artists extolling the virtues of participation?) Of the 31,000 who are registered to vote, about a third (10,000) of them have never voted in any primary or general election. Another third (10,000) have voted in only one general election. And the remaining third are participating, having voted in more than one election.
So how do we move young voters along the spectrum towards fuller participation? How do those numbers compare with the people at the other extreme -- the folks 65 and up?
Well, there are roughly 62,000 people over the age of 65 who are eligible to vote in the 8th, and 61,506 of them are registered. About 3,500 of them have not voted at all recently, while 42,000 of them have voted in every single general election since 2000. So apples-to-apples: So I'm looking for ideas -- and volunteers! Let's brainstorm. Surely we can figure this out. :-) Darcy
Engaging younger voters: the long-time puzzle | 54 comments (54 topical)
Engaging younger voters: the long-time puzzle | 54 comments (54 topical)
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