The Youth Vote - Access, Not Apathy

[babylonsister]

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/passingthrough/341489

Access, Not Apathy
posted by Michael Connery on 08/01/2008 @ 1:57pm

snip//

Young voters face more barriers to participating in the political process than any other demographic in the electorate except perhaps ex-felons. Some of these factors are structural and can be attributed to lifestyle issues. Others are deliberate attempts to keep young voters from the polls. Here's a look at how our voting system disenfranchises our youngest citizens:

--Photo ID: Increasingly states are adopting stringent voter ID laws that require voters to show government issued photo ID. Often young people - particularly students who attend school out of state - do not have such drivers licenses or other valid ID from the state in which they attend school. Many other young voters in urban areas have no need of a car and don't bother to get a drivers license, the most common form of ID. A poll by Rock the Vote found that 19% of students lacked such proper ID. Absentee ballots are not solution to this problem either. Many states require valid photo ID for first-time absentee voters. Again, students who want to vote absentee in their home state are often already at school and unable to provide ID at a polling place or at a board of elections office located hundreds of miles away.

--"Residency" Requirements: As noted by the Brennan Center, many local boards of elections attempt to disenfranchise the students residing in their jurisdiction by claiming that a dorm is not a legal residence. This has led to a common misconception among youth and other administrators that young voters cannot vote in the places where they go to school, despite Court rulings stating otherwise. Most recently this became an issue in the Iowa Caucus, where columnist David Yepsen and some Democratic campaigns disputed the rights of students to participate.

--Deadlines/Timing: Voter registration deadlines often fall in September or early October, right at the beginning of the school year. This is the busiest time of the year for many young people, who are acclimating to a new environment, and colleges and universities do very little to encourage student voter registration. --Poll Access: Students often lack convenient access to polling locations. In Ohio in 2004, students faced lines of up to 12 hours due to a lack of voting machines on or near campus. Some of those voters waited in line only to discover that their registration had been purged from the voter rolls. In 2006 at Prairie View A&M in Texas, students had to walk 7 miles to the nearest polling place to cast their ballot.

--Transience: Students and young people are far more mobile than older voters. Many move to new residences from year to year, requiring that they register anew after each move. --Lack of Attention: On the whole, young people have received far less attention from political campaigns and parties. For decades it was literally the policy of most campaigns to cut anyone under 30 off of their "walk lists." We know that in person, peer to peer contact is the most effective way to drive someone to the polls. Absent that attention from candidates and campaigns - attention which is showered on voters the older they get - it's no wonder that fewer and fewer young people make it to the polls.

--Fewer opportunities overall: This is sort of the no-brainer of the group, but young people have had fewer chances to register to vote than have older voters. This is a situation not likely to change unless some form of compulsory, or automated, voter registration is enacted at the national level.

Contrast all this to the situation of an older voter. Older voters have had many more opportunities to register. They are generally stationary, having put down roots in a community and thus do not need to change their registration. They have conveniently located polling places with short wait times. Their residency or eligibility is rarely challenged, and campaigns spend tens to hundreds of millions of dollars each cycle to reach out and encourage older voters to go to the polls. Is it any wonder that youth turnout lags behind?

snip//

Longterm, the most obvious structural solution is Election Day Registration, or EDR. EDR allows anyone to show up and register to vote on the day of an election. States with EDR consistently show higher rates of participation among all demographics of the electorate, but the increase in turnout is most significant among young voters. Studies show that EDR can boost youth turnout up to 14% (pdf), in many cases bringing youth turnout closely in line with the average turnout.

Youth voting - or the lack of it - is not about apathy, it's about access. Young voters lack it, older voters have it. If we want to bring more young people into the democratic process, it's time we stop yelling at them and start creating structures to engage them.

[pinto]

1. A great second look at the "youth vote". n/t

[babylonsister]

2. This dispels the myth that kids are just plain apathetic. Not this year,

I'm thinking, hoping, praying. O8)

[elocs]

3. If you look at recent presidential elections, nearly half the eligible voters

cannot be bothered to vote. The last election in 2004 had a turnout of 55.3% which is the best since 60.8% turned out in 1968. The first election I voted in was 1972 which had a turnout of 55.2%. I would suspect that the lack of youth voting is at least as much about apathy or simply being too much trouble as it is for the voting population in general.