Don't Believe Everything You Hear — The Youth Vote Was Up in 2004!

By Kourtney Stamps, Communications Intern

November 12, 2004

Since the early hours of Nov. 3, we've been hearing over and over that young voters like me didn't turn out for the 2004 election. The mainstream media has reported that youth turnout did not increase from 2000 to 2004. To set the record straight, that's simply not true. I am offended that my generation is once again being portrayed as the "apathetic" youth.

A total of 20.9 million Americans under the age of 30 voted this year, an increase of 4.6 million over the 2000 election. So why has the mainstream media been reporting otherwise? Well, the simple answer is that numbers are easily manipulated.

According to national exit polls, voters age 18-29 made up 17 percent of all voters this year, the same proportion as in 2000. That number has been widely reported because it supports the same story we've heard for years— that young people do not care about politics. In fact, voter turnout was up across all age groups, which is why the proportion of young voters didn't go up even though many more of us showed up at the polls. If reporters delved a little further into the numbers, they'd see that 28 percent more young people voted this year than in 2000.

Let's look at it another way. Out of the entire youth population, 51.6 percent turned out to vote this year, up from 42.3 percent in the last presidential election— that's an increase of 9.3 percentage points! Because these numbers are based on exit polls, they don't even include the vast number of young people who attend college out-of-state and therefore voted by absentee ballot. The turnout percentage was even higher in the contested battleground states of Florida, Iowa, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin. In those states 64.4 percent of the youth population turned out to vote, up from 51 percent in those same states in the 2000 election.

While this increase in voter turnout is likely a result of the importance of this year's presidential election, it could also be the beginning of a positive trend for future elections. The late 20s age group from 2000 has moved up an age bracket and has been replaced by 14 million young people who've just become eligible to vote in the past four years. The fact that so many of them made it out to the polls in their first presidential election means that they're already setting themselves up to become what pollsters call "likely voters," whose opinions will be surveyed in future elections.

In the months leading up to the presidential election, thousands of us under the age of 30 volunteered our time to work on Get-Out-The-Vote campaigns across the country. We worked to register thousands of new voters. We participated in phone banks. We went door-to-door handing out information to potential voters. We stood for hours by the side of the road with signs, smiling and waving at drivers passing by. Does that sound like an apathetic group?

While the youngest voting demographic has long been the main target of voter apathy charges, the percentage of voter turnout overall was only 59.6 percent this year. And that was the highest turnout since the 1968 presidential election when the U.S. was in the throes of the Vietnam War. It seems to me that apathy is not a problem unique to the youngest generation of eligible voters. Yet voters in other age categories are considered legitimate voting blocks with issues and concerns that politicians need to address in order to win.

A survey conducted by Rock the Vote found that these were the issues young voters cared about in the 2004 election: 1) the economy and jobs; 2) terrorism and national security; 3) the war in Iraq; 4) education; 5) civil liberties and civil rights; 6) crime and violence. Young people are also more likely than their older counterparts to be concerned about lesbian and gay rights and reproductive rights.

While the candidates did address many of these issues, no one did a very good job of framing the discussions in a context that spoke to young people. We're the ones trying to establish ourselves in a workforce where few companies can afford to hire new staff. We're the ones who are fighting and dying in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other war-torn parts of the world. We're the ones who are at a disadvantage if our education system isn't working or if college tuition is unaffordable. And while other age groups also care about things like equal pay, equal treatment under the law, legislation to prevent hate crimes, and access to safer contraception, we make up a large part of the group who suffers if these issues are ignored. It makes sense then that the youth vote was the only age group to choose the Kerry-Edwards ticket over the Bush-Cheney ticket, which we did by 54 to 44 percent.

So here's a note to the mainstream media. Stop reporting that we don't turn out to vote. Check the numbers and do the research. This is a dangerous message that needs to stop with this election. If it looks like the youth vote doesn't turn out, politicians won't feel obligated to address the issues that are important to us and they won't consider our attitudes and opinions when it comes time to make important decisions. Stop trying to disenfranchise us as a legitimate voting demographic. We're not going to let it happen.

And here's a note to politicians. Stop ignoring us! Think about how the decisions you make will affect people under 30. We'll be more likely to vote if you address our issues and frame them within a context that shows how your policies will benefit us. And, please, stop relying on celebrities to inspire us to go to the polls. As much as some of us might enjoy a good Boss concert, remember that at the height of Bruce Springsteen's popularity I was only three-years-old!

In the end, we're not going to vote just because someone says it's cool. We'll turn out to vote because we feel that the decisions we're being asked to make are going to affect our lives. We'll turn out because we want to speak up, because we want our voices to be heard. We'll continue to work to push our issues to the forefront of political discussion. And we won't give up.