Politics

Are Young Voters Has-Beens?

Brian Dakss

November 20, 2004 / 5:39 PM EST / CBS

This piece was written by Nicole Yinger of the CBS News Political Unit

Although the numbers have been in for more than two weeks, the question of whether the youth vote made a difference on Election Day remains very much open.

An Associated Press headline from November 2 appeared to offer sorry news for youth voter advocates: "2004 Not a Breakout for Youth After All." The sharp rise in turnout of 18-to 29-year-olds that those advocates were hoping for seemed lost in the body of post-election coverage. In fact, in the immediate wake of the vote, the general perception was that despite huge mobilization efforts, the youth vote comprised roughly the same proportion of the electorate as it did in 2000, in what some observers called a failed effort on the part of the youth voter activist groups.

However, three days later, a separate AP article led a wave of different headlines: "Big Voter Turnout Seen Among Young People." The reporting climate seemed to have shifted toward the conclusion that youth voter advocacy groups such as Rock the Vote, New Voters Project and Vote or Die! already believed: This year marked a huge success in the effort to increase youth voter turnout.

Why the mixed messages?

First, there was no clear distinction made between the youth "turnout rate," which refers to the percentage of young eligible voters who turned out, and the youth share of the electorate, which involves the percentage of all voters who were young. The numbers for the youth percentage of the electorate show no increase; 18-29-year-olds comprised 17 percent of the vote, the same as in 2000. However, the numbers for the youth turnout rate show an increase of 5.8 percent. So, was the effort to get out the youth vote successful or not? It seems to depend on who is asked.

According to New Voters Project Communications Director Ivan Frishberg, the media seemed stuck on the fact that the generally liberal youth voting bloc did not succeed in bringing Kerry to victory. "Days out, there was the assumption that Kerry would win and that the youth vote would be part of that victory," said Frishberg. "Youth delivering the victor would have been a great story. But, when the Kerry campaign collapsed on Election Night, (the AP) had to rethink the story, so they looked to (do) the story that the youth didn't deliver."

Youth vote advocates worry that the post-election perception by the media that the youth vote did not markedly increase will hurt efforts in elections to come. But Frishberg says the initial perception that the youth vote wasn't a big difference-maker will not affect the feeling of success within activist groups, nor the actions they take in the future. "They know their own experience," said Frishberg. "We feel confident that we will have met our goal (an increase in youth voter turnout of about 5 percent) when precinct analysis is done early next week."

Hans Riemer, the Washington Director of Rock the Vote, agreed that activist groups will generally not be affected by the perception, but mentioned that there might be a slightly negative effect among young voters themselves. "Saying that (the young) didn't turn out is absolutely wrong, but I don't know if we'll be able to undo that damage of the original message," Riemer said. He added that Rock the Vote plans to utilize the list of 700,000 names it complied this year and be active perusing issues in the 2005 and 2006 elections.

Even if advocacy groups plan to zealously continue their work, the question remains whether the mixed results regarding this year's success or failure of the youth vote will impact the way the young voters are targeted by the political parties down the road.

"It will be easy for civic groups, who are looking for participation over time, to see the importance of voter turnout in the future," said Peter Levine, Deputy Director of the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement at the University of Maryland. "However, it may be a different story for those who are motivated by the desire to elect a certain candidate."

Levine explained that there seemed to be a misconception by Democrats in particular during the past election that young people could win the election for their candidate. "If every young person had voted, Kerry would have still lost by 1.5 million votes," said Levine. "There are just not that many young people." He said the parties might eventually recognize that, in terms of voting blocs, young people may not be the "silver bullet" they hoped for.