email

Here's the latest media stories on the youth vote:

• The New York Times ran a big piece in Sunday's paper that in part praised young voters for their participation and influence on the election. It also asked the question "what next?" That's something I'm seeing a lot more of in the second wave of youth vote stories.
• Further examples of that new, "what next/will they stay involved" narrative can be found in these stories from Medill Reports and San Jose Mercury News.
• Another story by the Mercury News looks at how the governing philosophy favored by Millennials influenced their voting habit in this election.
• Luke Russert has a more optimistic - and data-driven - look at the youth turnout phenomenon.
• Campus Politico notes that campus activists are now turning their eyes towards issue advocacy and 2009 races.
• The Arizona Republic reports that the shifting partisan loyalties of the Millennials is putting the GOP in a tough spot.
• The Associated Press says that "young voters have clout, and they used it."
• At WireTap, Biko Baker, the Executive Director of the League of Young Voters, write about how he came to "drink the Obama Kool Aid," and encourages young activists not to let up now that Obama is in office.

If you've read this far, you are obviously looking to find the secret of Obama's success. That claim might be a little overblown, but you should definitely check out these two pieces:

• Ari Melber writes about Obama's email list and calls it "the big stick Obama will carry to Washington."

  Obama's list now tops a whopping ten million people, according to today's Washington Post.

  The article does not directly attribute that figure to anyone. The same paragraph cites "senior aides," however, to report that the list is so financially valuable that it was "briefly offered" as loan "collateral during a cash-flow crunch." A source in a position to know also told me that the email list has reached eleven million people. [...]

  It enables direct communication at a remarkable scale. The next President can instantly address 16 percent of his national supporters, based on the popular vote. To put it another way, the list dwarfs the audience of all the nightly cable news shows combined.

• At TechPresident, Gene Koo looks at how technology beefed up the Obama ground game - particularly in the final week - and takes a guess at how these technologies will transform the ground game in 2010 or 2012.

I just saw CNN report on the fake text messages we posted about earlier today. And there are new reports coming in that these texts are now claiming to be "Breaking News from CNN" to lend them an air of legitimacy.

YDA is messaging their list to get the word out about these fraudulent messages:

Dear Michael,

We are getting reports from multiple states, of a recent influx of fraudulent emails, fliers, and text messages incorrectly telling students that voting has been delayed or polling places are moved for students.

Obviously these assertions are FALSE and an obvious attempt by supporters of Republican candidates afraid of the impact you are having on this election.

No voting has been delayed, all remaining voting will take place today, and you can find your polling place at www.govote.org. If you or your friends encounter any problems voting, call 866-OUR-VOTE for assistance.

If you have received any of these emails or texts do not delete them. Please forward them to chapter@yda.org immediately. If you are unable to forward text messages from your phone, please take a photo of the text on your phone and email the photo to us.

Do not allow these cheap, dirty, and irresponsible voter suppression tactics to succeed. Forward this email on to all your friends so they know the truth, post the blog post we wrote on this topic on your facebook wall, and do whatever you can to spread the word.

Sincerely,
Tony Cani
National Political Director
Young Democrats of America

The League sent a similar email to their members.

Update II: This is also confirmed in Montana. While most people won't be fooled by this, the influx of first time voters, many connected to the election via Obama's text program, and reports of long lines conveyed by these texts, could depress turnout.

Update: Florida is confirmed and the message is much the same as that from the George Mason email. No word on where these are originating.
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Stories are beginning to break that young voters - particularly students - are receiving fraudulent emails and text messages that provide misinformation about the day, time and location that students should vote.

Ben Smith reports on an email sent to George Mason University students:

A George Mason University student forwards over a pair of emails that went out to the student body of the Virginia school:

First:

-----Original Message-----
From: ANNOUNCE04-L on behalf of Office of the Provost
Sent: Tue 11/4/2008 1:16 AM
To: ANNOUNCE04-L@mail04.gmu.edu
Subject: Election Day Update

To the Mason Community:

Please note that election day has been moved to November 5th. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause you.

Peter N. Stearns
Provost

And then:

-----Original Message-----
From: Office of the Provost on behalf of Office of the Provost
Sent: Tue 11/4/2008 8:08 AM
To: PROVOSTOFFICE-L@mail04.gmu.edu
Subject: Urgent Voting Information

Dear Colleagues,

It has come to my attention early this morning that a message was hacked into the system fraudulently stating that election day has been moved. I am sure everybody realizes this is a hoax, it is also a serious offense and we are looking into it. Please be reminded that election day is today, November 4th.

Peter N. Stearns
Provost

In Austin and Houston, young voters are receiving text messages saying that Obama supporters should vote tomorrow do to long lines.

I'm also hearing - and various people are working to confirm - that young voters in Florida and Montana are receiving similar text messages. I'll update you when we get confirmation on this.

• Early voting begins today in Virginia, Kentucky and Georgia. If that's where you live, stop reading this and go vote!
• Next week is Ohio's "Golden Week," when you can register to vote and cast your ballot on the same day. If you want to go help out in the state next week, volunteer here.
• The National Conference on Citizenship released its Third Civic Health Index today. They also held their annual conference today (which I was supposed to attend - apologies to all for not making it down). I'll have more later, but for now, you can read another blogger's take here.
• 29-year-old Nate Willems, also a blogger, is running for State Senate in Iowa. Best of luck, Nate, and we'd love to have you here anytime to blog about the experience.
• Turns out that email is not a dying medium among today's youth afterall. (Warning, this link will take you to the most obnoxious sign-up process in history. Go at your own risk).
• Trying to wrap your head around this economic mess we now find ourselves in? Go read this article in The Nation.
• FiveThirtyEight.com notes that some folks are getting their feathers ruffled as the Obama campaign directs funds away from swag like lawn signs towards other things like field work. Oh, the horror! Hey, sounds right to me.
• Michael Moore is encouraging everyone to download his new movie, "Slacker Uprising," about his tour of colleges and universities in 2004. Moore will by live blogging on Daily Kos tonight at 11pm Eastern.
• The Swing Semester Syllabus is now online.
• The Daily Pennsylvanian has an excellent interview with Howard Dean about the role of young people in this election and remaking the Democratic Party.
• P. Diddy may be off on the sidelines, uploading crazy-ass YouTube videos every week, but celebrity-driven politics is bigger than ever. Ad Week has the skinny.
• New York State College Dems are gearing up for the election. So are a lot of College Dem chapters, but NYS keeps popping up in my Google Alerts and on blogs. They've got a much larger online footprint than other College Dem chapters, which is a good thing. That's how you get noticed. More chapters should be as active within the blogosphere.
• This is funny. A Republican candidate is crying foul over her loss in a recent primary. The crime? Her opponent registered and GOTV'd too many College Republicans. I'm sure there's a joke about eating your young in there . . .

I've been thinking today about a part of our Deconstructing MFA post. Mark Ristaino, MFA's communications director, asked: how do you make a national organization with a huge membership more personal? How does a staff of 6-12 maintain meaningful, personal contact with 70,000 kids?

With email - as many of our commenters noted - you really can't. But why does email need to be the way that you maintain contact with your membership? For a group like MFA, where your people are young and much more tech savvy, why not find a charismatic staffer and record 60 seconds of video every week to post on your YouTube and MySpace pages? Why wouldn't your emails just consist of a big-ass image with the "play" symbol on it that took you to that YouTube or MySpace, or Home page? Or maybe its possible to just embed YouTube videos in an email . . . ? Do that long enough and you won't even need the emails anymore, people would just go to one of those locations where they could play the video.

Case in point: MFA has a member on their Board of Directors - Dan Lipski. Dan was a volunteer nominated and elected to the board by the MFA membership to serve out a term on the board as their representative. Dan got that job because he was a kick-ass volunteer that lots of members could identify with or had personal contact with through the many, many shows he worked. Why not have Dan Lipski record a video about what he does, what MFA is up to, shows that need volunteers, etc. as a way to stay in touch with your people? Why don't other youth focused orgs do the same thing with their own Dan Lipskis?

With Widgets that let you fundraise off your MySpace page, and the flexibility of these sites to let you custom build your profile, most functions of an organizational email could probably be transferred successfully to this format. And even if there are some things that work better in an email (I'm sure there are holes in this idea, so start shooting), this isn't an either-or choice.

Overall, it probably won't give you "meaningful contact" with 70,000+ members,but it will make your organization more personal, and it will probably bump up your "clickthrough" rates.

Just a thought.