Youth Vote Potential and the 2006 Midterms

Project Vote has released a new report on the final turnout breakdowns for the 2006 midterm elections: Representational Bias in the 2006 Electorate (pdf). The report contains some interesting, if not altogether unexpected, information about the breakdown of the youth electorate.

According to Project, Vote, despite ending a two decade decline (pdf) in turnout during midterm election, the youth vote came out at only half of its potential force in 2006, and that number itself hides the fact that voter registration among 18-29 year olds was still only at 51% of the eligible population.

The report also revealed some not unexpected disparities in voter turnout among different racial/ethnic groups. African American and Latino men continue to vote at much lower rates than their white counterparts, with women in those demographics performing substantially better. The most surprising piece of news was the extremely low rate at which young Asian American/Pacific Islander Americans voted - just 13% of eligible AA/PI young men came to the ballot box. That's pretty incredible since this is not typically a demographic that you hear a lot about, particularly in connection to voting rights and disparities at the ballot box. There is a whole sector of the youth electorate that apparently is not voting and has no one advocating on their behalf to increase their registration and turnout rates.

Project Vote's report illustrates the problem, but the organization is also working to push solutions. This weekend they published an op-ed on MyDD highlighting policy fixes such as election day registration, and laws criminalizing voter intimidation as just two of a number of policy proposals to solve this. Similar proposals have been endorsed by both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama.

Currently, there is some form of Election Day Registration legislation working its way through the legislature in 21 different states, and estimates by Demos suggest that such legislation could boost youth turnout by as much as 14%. This seems like one of the surest ways to increase the power of young people in our political system, erase the representational biases that Project Vote has identified.

I recognize that election day registration is not necessarily the most sexy issue, especially compared to Global Warming, the war in Iraq, Darfur, or any number of global catastrophes that seem to be piling upon one another. Yet the results of successful EDR camapigns in other states are so apparent, that I can't help but wonder why we don't see more visible campaigns on the part of progressive youth organizations to support these simple voting reforms.