The Hill Says Young Voters Don't Matter

UPDATE: Also... a quick fact from our friend Kat: 18-20 year olds didn't have the right to vote until 1972. So the excerpt ""The Census Bureau’s historical time series shows that the 18-to-24 vote peaked at 50.9 percent in 1964, 50.4 percent in 1968, and 49.6 percent in 1972" is especially funny.

David Hill, a reporter for The Hill and republican pollster, attacked young voters and their enthusiasm today by directly targeting Heather Smith, executive Director of Rock the Vote. His argument is illogical, insubstantial, poorly researched, and dishonest.

Lets begin:

"Campaigners must set aside normative wishes about kids voting and be realistic about the likelihood of that happening. Regrettably, youth vote boosters like Heather induce too many candidates and campaigns to place too much emphasis and hope on that unreliable slice of the electorate. If Barack Obama wants to build his entire campaign on exciting the youth vote, then as a Republican I hope he does exactly that, because it will lead to his defeat. The hard numbers don’t lie."

Heather Smith advocates getting out the vote for young people and encourages candidates to talk to young voters. She does not say that young voters will win a candidate an election or that they should only talk to young voters.

But rather, in a political world where candidates and campaigns do absolutely no communication with young voters, making that contact and building those relationships CAN make or break a campaign.

Hill is right about one thing. Numbers don't lie. Youth outreach in conjunction with other efforts can and has made a difference. See some REAL numbers here, here, here, here, here, and here's a nice fact sheet with date for even more info.

No one in the youth movement is saying or would say that only targeting young people is the way to win an election. In fact I think Jane Flemming has articulated on here before a clarification about that misnomer.

Next:

"but the more compelling number may be that 58.1 percent of the entire 18- to 24-year-old cohort didn’t vote. That doubles non-voting among 65- to 74-year-olds, only 29.2 percent of whom didn’t vote."

Its true. And if you'd expand the numbers to reflect the two voting blocks in a more even way say compare 18-29 year olds vs. 65-77 year olds then you'd be looking at ten years in each voting block. To take folks 18-24 (7 years) and compare it to 65-74 (10 years) disproportionately skews the data to fit his thesis.

What is more substantial is this table here:

Hill can talk about seniors all he wants. Its great that seniors turn out to the polls and work hard to vote. It is, however, significantly easier for them to vote then it is for younger people as today's Dallas Morning News reports:

"Despite the high voter interest, many students also were turned away – for showing up at the wrong precinct, forgetting identification cards and failing to register in time."

First, young people are not as settled as seniors (who often live in the same house they die in). Young people are just starting out, they move around from college, to internships, to new homes, new apartments, school, and other places. With Election Day Registration we can level the playing field and make it easier for young people who are too often disenfranchised.

Secondly, there is an obscene amount of outreach to seniors. In fact, seniors have their own nationally recognized subsidized organization that spends millions on lobbying each year for their specific age block. Young people don't have that. They have Heather Smith and the hundreds of young people working tirelessly for little money all to combat negative articles like David Hill's.

If we passed Election Day Registration in each state and we had even half of the outreach that seniors have 18-29 year olds would run this country. Instead we have little outreach and only 7 states offer EDR. Even with that, we have an overwhelming number of people voting this year with the potential for more.

The rest of the article throws more stats at you that don't make sense because they only look at 18-24 year olds. He finally claims that even at its height

"The Census Bureau’s historical time series shows that the 18-to-24 vote peaked at 50.9 percent in 1964, 50.4 percent in 1968, and 49.6 percent in 1972

By that same token, since in 2004 American turnout peaked at 60% a record turnout for the entire country, that we just shouldn't connect with any of those other voters that are registered because.... they don't matter. Right.... that makes SO much sense.

Amber Goodwin who serves on the DNC Youth Advisory Council, the NAACP Youth and College Branch, the YDA Minority Caucus, and tons of others wrote a letter to the editor that we hope they have the guts to publish in response to Hill's piece. Among the facts and figures, from the the recent primary states, Amber says this:

"Maybe Mr. Hill slept through the results of the caucuses from last night, or somehow misplaced his newspaper that showed the historic youth turnout in out state of Texas. Yes, I get it; the "Obama Factor" is huge. I am now an Obama delegate to the Senate Convention and am proud to support his campaign. One of the reasons that his campaign has been very successful is what youth advocates have been saying for years: campaigns must target young people.

Obama's campaign started from the beginning by actually talking to young people, targeting young people and having conversations with us about our issues, many of which resonate across race, gender, age and even party lines. The 2008 presidential cycle is the first time that we have seen skilled National Youth Directors as integral staff for all of the major Democratic candidates."

We think that perhaps Mr. Hill is just a little Republican pollster that is seeing the numbers and is worried. The fact is that we are making huge waves and both parties are scrambling to understand what is going on and how to capture us. As a result we are in large enough numbers that we impact policies and campaigns by serving as a compliment to existing outreach.

For Hill, supposedly a respected numbers guy, to try and come up with his own numbers and only quote data that doesn't match up is simply bad journalism. I think people are smarter than that.