Because voting at a young age promotes a lifelong habit of civic engagement, the New Voters Project works to increase voter participation among 18- to 24-year-olds.
Results
2008 Election
New Voter’s Project organizers and students employed a wide variety
of old-fashioned pavement-pounding with new tech tools—from Facebook to
"text out the vote" tables—to urge young people to get to the polls. In
part due to our work, young voter turnout surged more than 3.4 million
votes compared to 2004 levels. For the first time in 20 years, the
young voter share (18- to 24-year-olds) of the electorate surpassed
that of voters over 65.
2008 Primaries
In the summer of 2007, we launched our "What’s Your Plan?" campaign.
We used fundraisers, town hall meetings and photo ops in the early
primary states to ask the candidates to talk to young people about the
issues we care about. Pairing new technology with classic organizing,
we also launched big voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives
across the country to show that on-the-ground efforts to reach young
voters work. Across the country, we mobilized 500 volunteers in 28
states to ask the candidates about their plans on issues such as global
warming, college affordability, health care and financial security. We
also recruited and trained 250 "Caucus Rock Stars" in Iowa to mobilize
5,000 of their peers. In part due to our efforts, youth turnout more
than doubled in the 2008 primaries.
2006 Elections
In fall 2006, the Student PIRGs’ New
Voters Project worked on 80 college campuses in 22 states to boost
voter turnout. We forged alliances with student government leaders,
faculty and administrators and recruited over 1,100 students to lead or
volunteer on their campus. Our hardworking coalition partners and
student leaders registered 75,000 students to vote. Leading up to
Election Day, we made 94,000 personalized Get Out the Vote reminders
either over the phone or face-to-face.
The Center for
Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE)
measured the turnout increase between 2002 and 2006 in student-dense
precincts where we and other partners focused our efforts. The analysis
focused on a set of 36 precincts in Ohio, Connecticut, Iowa, Colorado,
and Michigan and found that average turnout in those precincts
increased by 157 percent over 2002. Nationally, the increase in youth
voter turnout was four times the rate of the general population’s
increase (4 percent for youth, 1 percent overall).
2005 Elections
The New Voters Project focused on youth voter registration and
turnout in eight states in 2005. We registed over 18,000 voters and
made more than 48,000 get-out-the-vote contacts.
An analysis
of raw data by the Center for Information &
Research on Civic Learning & Engagement (CIRCLE) at the University
of Maryland looked at turnout in New Jersey and Virginia, the two
states with major off-year elections. Their study indicates that young
people voted in bigger numbers in the
gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia
in 2005 than they did in 2001.
