2004

Michael Moore is releasing a new movie on September 23rd - Slacker Uprising - and he's giving it away for free (he says he was inspired by Radiohead).

Best part, it looks like the movie focuses on his tour of college and universities in 2004 and how young people did in fact come out and Vote for Change four years ago.

Just a reminder, if young people were the only ones voting in 2004, this is what the electoral map would have looked like:

Today, we all head to the polls to choose our representatives and hopefully change the direction of our country. One voting block that is sure to play an important - and expanding - role in today's election is young voters.

In 2004, the media completely botched the story about young voter turnout. An article in the AP mistakenly reported young voters share of the electorate instead of the hard turnout numbers. In 2004, youth turnout as a share of the electorate only rose 1-2% points due to an overall turnout increase of 4% among the voting population. Young Voter strategies has more on the difference between share and turnout here. (pdf)

The result of this error was a complete dismissal of youth turnout for months, and a reinforcement in the minds of many politicians and the media that youth remained apathetic. We know that's not true.

The real story, we now know, was that youth turnout increased by 11% over 2000 turnout levels, and that young voters chose Kerry over Bush by a 10 point margin. This was the largest increase since 18 year olds were granted the vote in 1972.(pdf)

To make sure that this little piece of electoral history doesn't repeat itself, I'd like to establish some baseline info about youth turnout - what to look for, and what we can expect today:

(NOTE: Originally published Nov 5th, 2004 on musicforamerica.org.)
It's official, the "kids didn't show up" spin is bull:

Despite long lines and registration snafus, voters under age 30 clocked the highest turnout percentage since 1972. The good news is that America's young people are more engaged in politics than at any time in two generations. Aging cynics have been quick to blame the kids for a host of political lapses, but the cynics have it wrong.

What's more, in battleground states -- where MfA and a host of others did the bulk of their work -- turnout was above 60%, and broke for Kerry by an average of almost 20 points.

Florida? Ours.
Ohio? Ours.
Colorado? Ours.
Virgina? Missouri? Arkansas? Ours.

Our generation did it's part and then some, and most of us will stick with it. Our choice was Kerry by a landslide. The future belongs to us, not the moral minority. Some in the media don't quite get it. If you see people bitch about our performance, send a letter to the editor to set the record straight. We should all be damn proud of what we've accomplished.

I posted this over on the Daily Kos, probably the highest-traffic liberal blog on the planet. It got to the front page and there are more than 300 comments. See what people are saying.

Here's what the electoral vote map looks like for our people. Read it and weep, Karl: