The youth vote increased and had an impact in the 2004 presidential elections, said panelists at Tuesday night's American Forum, contrary to some media reports.
Panelist and pollster Scott Keeter, from the Pew Research, said that voter turnout among 18- to 29-year-olds increased by 4.5 million votes this year, resulting in a turnout rate of almost 50 percent among that age group.
"That's still lower than it is with older Americans, but [youth voters] are keeping pace with older Americans this time," said Keeter. According to Keeter, 56 percent of those 4.5 million voters chose Sen. John Kerry over President Bush.
Yet despite these increases, some media outlets have said that youth voter rates did not significantly increase this year. MTV representative Ian Rowe attributes this perception to an Associated Press wire story from election night that said that the youth did not turn out. Exit polls indicated that fewer than one in 10 voters were between the age of 18 and 24, the AP reported, about the same proportion of the electorate as in the 2000 election.
"It was almost as if we had done too good a job raising expectations. ... It was a story they wanted to tell," Rowe said.
Adrienne Maree Brown from the League of Young Voters agreed with the others that the youth vote had increased. "In Wisconsin, [young voters] were the margin of victory," said Brown, citing her organization's grass-roots "block" efforts in that state as well as others. "We experienced 85 percent turnout in some of our blocks, which we were very pleased with," she said.
The panelists addressed how youth voter turnout affected the outcome of the election and how to convince young voters that their vote matters, even in so-called "solid red" or "solid blue" states.
Panelists also agreed that election reform is necessary. Randy Brinson, a panelist from Redeem the Vote, an organization that targeted "young people of faith" to vote, said the election process should be easier.
"If you can do your income tax online, you should be able to register to vote online," said Brinson, denouncing what he calls a system of red tape that discourages young voters from filling out the necessary paperwork, printing out forms and mailing them in.
Brown agreed that reforms are necessary.
"We need a lot more reforms," said Brown, mentioning voter fraud and canvasser corruption as several key problems in the 2004 election. "I'm looking for [the young] generation as the generation of electoral reform."
Brown also suggested proportional representation in the Electoral College and increased focus on local races as a way to encourage young voters to get out, even in states as "decided" as New York or Texas.
"More of the decisions that actually affect people's lives are made on the local level," Brown said. "You have a definite electoral voice there."
Rowe voiced one argument that's used against voting. "It's as if the election was only happening in battleground states," he said.
Keeter said a lack of competition in many races was also a key problem.
"Only about 5 percent of congressional races had any serious competition," Keeter said. "It's a national scandal."
The panelists also focused on faith as an issue in youth voter turnout, since Evangelical Christian voters played an important role in this election, panelists said.
"The religious right was one of the first groups to say that the youth vote didn't matter," Brinson said. His organization used a Rock the Vote-like approach of including Christian singers, radio stations,and concerts to reach young Evangelicals, Brinson said. Citing the various Christian-based tours and canvassing efforts going on in Ohio, Brinson said, "We think [they] made a tremendous difference in [the outcome in] Ohio."
Keeter agreed that faith made a difference, saying that Evangelical voters went 7 to 1 for Bush.
However, the liberal side of politics also used faith to engage voters, Brown said. Her organization offered faith-based voter guides, geared at attracting young Christians with an interest in "progressive" politics.
"The natural evolution from being a Christian is to take the progressive approach. ... Who would Jesus bomb? He wouldn't bomb anyone," Brown said.
For about half the forum, the panelists answered individual questions posed by moderator and School of Communication professor Jane Hall. She also posed questions to the students, asking for their personal feedback on the media, the election and the issues most important to young voters.
Students voiced their opinions with cheers and clapping after several comments and questions. Students also lined up behind the microphones on both sides of the lecture hall.
SOC senior Beth Degi sparked debate with her response to Hall's question of what moral issue affected her the most.
"Moral issues should not have been on the ballot at all," Degi said.
Citing "more important" issues such as the "loss of civil liberties [and] reactionary policies," Degi said that moral issues were off topic for the campaign.
"We should be talking about jobs, the economy. ... I'm not really sure why we are talking about the religious beliefs of one-third of the nation," she said.
After the cameras and microphones were off, a crowd of students gathered around the panelists to continue the discussion.
Rema Khouri, a freshman in the School of Public Affairs, said she enjoyed the forum.
"I think it's good that they put focus on the youth [vote]," Khouri said. "It was also good that they included someone who was [politically] very far left as well as someone who was very far right."
Megan Devlin, an SOC student, agreed. "I think they had a good range of opinions and information," she said.
The panel discussion ran from 8 to 9 p.m. in Ward 1. Both C-SPAN and AU's NPR affiliate, WAMU 88.5 FM, broadcast the forum live.
