Year after year there’s all this talk about energizing the youth vote. Year after year, it’s a letdown. In 2004, however, the turnout for Virginia’s 18-24 year olds matched seniors as a voting block. Something unprecedented nationwide and a strong reason why Zogby initially called the commonwealth for Kerry before changing later in the day. One of the driving forces behind this was a little PAC called Virginia21. The difference in their strategy and that of others like RockTheVote: Absentee ballot requests. MTV can register all the college students they want with RockTheVote, but if you can’t get a ballot in the hands of a college student, it’s not going to matter much. Most states use an entirely antiquated system for absentee ballot requests, a system that’s simply not utilized by young people that are still yet to have to write checks and pay bills…. by that I mean snail mail (seriously, think about when the last time was that your kids needed stamps). Anyways, since claiming residency in one’s college town often has the potential to affect health insurance and dependency status, many students just don’t bother to change their home districts (so absentee requests are pivotal). Yes we saw record turnout in Iowa, but before assuming that it’s because of the shiny “change” message, lets think about what else might have contributed to that… How about the fact that for the first time ever, students were home for the caucuses? It was Christmas break. I wouldn’t call it laziness, but participation really comes down to convenience. There isn’t a state in the union that makes voting accessible to 18-24 year olds. If it’s convenient to vote, college students have shown that they will vote. If it’s not, they don’t and the process of trying to do so from afar is a convoluted mess. In some states, new voters must wait until they are registered before they can request an absentee ballot. Deadlines, mailing addresses, it all plays a part. How many students do you think would vote if we could register them to do it online? If they can register for selective service online, there’s absolutely no reason whatsoever that they shouldn’t be able to register to vote. One social security number, one vote. Anyways, I digress, with the current system, proven strategies exist.

Virginia21 created a website that allowed visitors from any state to log on and fill out a form online. The system then automatically generated the proper paperwork; All one had to do was hit print and drop it in a mailbox. One could also automatically generate the absentee ballot request for each individual state; They could do this at the same time they registered to vote (on the same site). All the new voter had to do was drop it in a mailbox. Every public university in Virginia participated in the program. It was a campaign largely through email and instant messenging, and as I mentioned before, it was overwhelmingly successful. Let me just reiterate that 18-24 year olds matched seniors as a voting bloc in Virginia… surprising the crap out of VA politicians. If the youth feel like they aren’t being heard, they need only look to Virginia, where before the next election cycle, Virginia’s finest gave second thoughts to their massive cuts to education, providing 16 million in new funding for higher learning. If this trend could be replicated nationwide, we’d have a much different political landscape (but given the political tendencies of college students, I’m not so sure that’s something I’m anxious to see).

On the note of conservatism.. as crazy as the old loon is, I have to give Ron Paul some credit for bringing a new generation to conservative principles. When it’s all said and done and we’re onto the general, I think this support is likely to remain on the right.

Medicated on January 24, 2008 at 1:31 PM