Youth Vote

During the months leading up to the 2008 Presidential election an effort unlike any before was made to register Americans to vote and get them to the polls on election day. The youth vote was especially targeted, and registering first time voters to the democratic party become crusade for groups like Move On and Organizing for America.

The campaigning worked. On November 4^th, 2008, 47% of males citizens and 55% of female citizens ages 18-29 voted. Social Media was also used as a campaigning device. Information was more accessible to the youth because of media outlets like Facebook, Myspace and Twitter, where candidates and political campaigns and target a specific audience in a fast and concise way.

The concept of youth is defined in many ways, most plaintively in the Merriam -Webster’s dictionary as the ‘period between childhood and maturity.’ Political campaigns targeted the young, many of whom were experiencing for the first time the role of a voting citizen.

Two years later, the efforts made to target the youth were not nearly as central. The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement reported that only 20% of American citizens under the age of 30 voted in the midterm election. The percentage is not unusual compared to past midterm elections, but dismal when compared to the youth turn out during the Presidential Election.

Analysis’s believe that the candidates are to blame for the low youth vote. Most midterm campaigns were targeted at established adults. Heather Smith of Rock the Vote said, “These young people are willing to participate and be active by nature, but they are not going to show up unless they are invited.”

Rasia Collins, a 24 year old resident of Harlem, agrees with Smith. On the corner of 125^th and Amsterdam Avenue Collins said, “Two years ago we all felt like we were part of something. [Collins and friends] were out canvassing, attending events and rallying. It felt like a community,” she said of the Obama campaign, “When Obama won it was like ‘we did this together,’ there was nothing of the sort in the midterm election.” Collins voted, but did not do any research or have much opinion. “I just voted straight democrat,” she said. “I didn’t even know the name of who I was voting for until I got in the booth.”

The youth seem to also be disillusioned by politics. Many youth today are underwhelmed with the ‘change’ President Obama promised two years ago. The youth generation has been spoiled with instant gratification; mobile e-mail, instant movie downloads, wikipedia and google have made them impatient. “Perhaps we’re just fed up with politics, In 2010 we’re still struggling economically, we still have soldiers abroad dying every day, it’s hard to see the change. It’s not happening fast enough.” Said Collins.

MTV News, which covered the 2008 election ferociously and urged the youth to register and vote with success, covered much less of midterm candidates and issues. On MTV.com’s election webpage, an election was created in which MTV fans voted for the President, Vice President, Senate and House of Prop; winners being Justin Beiber, Katy Perry, Maroon 5 and the Jonas Brothers, respectively. An MTV intern, who asked not to be named, said the election was not supposed to mock the midterm election, but instead energize youth voters by reminding them they do not what they want. “An ideal young voter would look at the website and vote for the Senate of Pop, then go out and vote for their states senators.” She also stressed that it was hard to apply the same outreach that MTV used in 2008 to the 2010 midterm election. “There were fifty different races going on. Countless, countless candidates, we couldn’t cover all of that, so we used music as a medium.”

Though many more young Americans voted in the MTV Pop election than in the 2010 midterm election, they may be on to something. “The problem is that there weren’t any rockstars.” said Jesus Fernandez, a 22 year old resident of Queens. “Barack Obama was a rock star when he was running for President, that was his attitude and that’s how [the youth] saw him. There weren’t any rock stars this time around.” Fernandez believed that kept a lot of young people from voting.

The Republican party gained back control of the senate and house during the midterm election, proving the old adage our elders true, how quickly they forget.’ Whether it be lack of rock stars or of concise information, the things that kept the youth from voting in this election will hopefully be rejuvenated for 2012, and the youth will resume their role as voting citizens.