Youth Turnout Rises 5-6 Percent

The 2008 election saw turnout among voters aged 18 to 30 rise to between 52 and 53 percent, up from 48 percent in the 2004 election, according to estimates released Monday by the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University.

This rise represents an increase of 3.4 million voters since 2004. While nationally 53 percent of those under the age of 30 have taken at least one college course, the data revealed that of those in that age group who voted, 70 percent had gone to college.

“It’s mainly a social class difference between the working and middle class,” said CIRCLE Director Peter Levine. “The middle class has more confidence in the government and the possibility of change through the elections,” he said. “In addition, it is easier to campaign to college students.”

Turnout among youth voters has been on the rise since 1996 due to the re-engagement of American youth in politics, according to Levine.

“I think college students were more enthusiastic for this election,” said Colin J. Motley ’10, president of the Harvard Republican Club. “Barack Obama energized the youth voters similar to Ronald Reagan back in 1980.”

He added that he thought the high turnout was a good thing, though he would have preferred a different outcome.

Joanna I. Naples-Mitchell ’10, the former political director of the Harvard College Democrats, said that in addition to Obama’s historical candidacy galvanizing youth voters, the failure of the Bush administration drove many to the polls too.

“The convergence of several factors helped engage the youth in the election,” she said. “[Obama] revolutionized how political campaigns are run especially through his use of the Internet.”

H-VOTE, an Institute of Politics program, helped students register in their home states and obtain absentee ballots. Two-thousand seventeen students registered or pledged to vote through H-VOTE this year, four times the number in 2004.

Levine said that while turnout among youth voters was high, many people expected the number to be even higher.

“It wasn’t higher because conservative youth were not engaged,” Levine said. “Sixty six percent of these votes went to Obama.”

Levin said that according to national exit polls, 16 percent of youth said they were contacted by the Obama campaign whereas only 4 percent said they were contacted by the McCain campaign.

“A higher turn-out needs two candidates to engage the youth, not just one,” Levine said.