The youth are a huge demographic in the elections this year, and the candidates are aware of this. All the candidates are reaching out to the youth, trying hard to rally their vote. Even in mid-March, "more than 5.7 million voters under the age of 30 [had] participated in the primaries and caucuses held thus far. That's a 109 percent increase from the last set of presidential primaries, according to Rock the Vote," and I'm sure the numbers have increased since then ("Young Voters Could Put Obama or Clinton in the White House"). The youth are voting in huge numbers this year, and the youth can really make a difference in the election.
Hillary Clinton tried to mobilize youth by setting up a "feature on [the campaign's] web site that allows Facebook users to ask her questions." Clinton also stated that "we should even have a government blogging team where people in the agencies are constantly telling all of you...everything that's going on so that you have up-to-the-minute information about what your government is doing" ("Clinton Chasing Youth Vote: 'We Should Have a Government Blogging Team!' ")
However, Barack Obama seems to be more successful in bringing in the youth vote. Compared to Clinton, "Obama has captured more than 50 percent of the vote of 18-to-29-year-olds in nearly every primary contest to date," according to Cora Currier's "Obama's Youth Movement." How is Obama doing this? Obama's "organization on campuses is excellent, and he has tapped successfully into the power of social networking sites and the viral messaging of YouTube" (Currier). At South Carolina State University, Obama even had big-name celebrities help him. Usher, Kerry Washington, and Chris Tucker helped him to recruit for the primaries ("Usher Brings Obama a Little Love").
On the Republican side, John McCain is also, to the surprise of some, getting some votes of the youth. McCain "won the youth vote in more states than any other GOP contender on Super Tuesday" and he is also "perceived by voters and the media to be a maverick with good credentials on some top youth issues" (Michael Connery's blog (he's the guy from the IMPACT conference!)). At the MTV/ MySpace candidate dialogue, "he knocked it out of the park and actually gained ground among the young voters watching and participating in the debate" (Michael Connery). Also, I had no idea about this and this is really cool, but Connery mentions that McCain has "made high profile appearances in hit movies like the Wedding Crashers, hit TV shows like 24, and he's been on the Daily Show more times than [he] can count."
All of the candidates are targeting the youth in some way, and we'll watch as the youth turnout hopefully increases.
~Sarah
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Monday, May 19, 2008
And, we're seniors.
This has been a really busy semester for Team Vote-CP. There's just been so much going on that the time just literally flew by. So here's a few updates on what's been going on for us:
In March, we attended the IMPACT conference, held at Northeastern University. It's a conference on student service, advocacy, and social action, and (in my opinion), it was an extremely rewarding experience. While the main focus of our research is centered around the University of Maryland, one of our goals is to assess how well our research would apply to other schools or in other places around the country. The conference gave us a great chance to talk to people from different backgrounds who were interested in our topic and see what is going on at other schools, as well as to find out whether the attitudes we discovered from our focus groups were farther-reaching. We learned a lot about methods that other people are using to reach out to youth voters. But more importantly, we learned a couple of key points that consistently get voters out and keep them interested. The first thing was the importance of peer-to-peer contact: approaching someone in person is much more effective than electronic or mechanized outreach (like form emails or pre-recorded phone messages). Also, in order to keep youth participation up, it is important that we, as a society, make civic engagement a part of everyday life once again, rather than letting it continue to be something that comes up once every few years. Overall, the focus that we gained was on sustainable engagement--making sure that whatever we do, it does more than just work now, it keeps working in the future.
After we came back from the conference, we got word back from the IRB: our survey had been approved for distribution. Yay us! So we uploaded our survey on surveymonkey.com, and for the months of April and May we sent out the link to everyone we could, asking that they take the survey. We also got paper copies printed and distributed those in classes and outside the dining hall on campus. All in all, we got almost 1000 surveys filled out. A couple of weeks ago, we sat down as a team and looked at the results and found two major trends. First, students want easier access to information on the candidates. This, we anticipated, for the most part. The other trend we saw kind of surprised me. Over 70% of the students we surveyed told us they were registered to vote at their home address. In retrospect, this makes sense, since most people I know registered in their high schools in assemblies and the like. But the reason this surprised me is because sooooo many GOTV efforts I've seen since getting to UMD have focused on re-registering voters at their College Park addresses. Anyway, based on this we developed our tactic for next semester!
Now, as finals have come to an end and everyone's moving home for the summer or getting into the groove of their internships, we've got a couple of (super-important) things to get done. First, we've gotta work the kinks out of the tactic we're planning on. Also, we're applying for additionally funding so we can actually implement the tactic. Third, we've got to re-apply to everyone's favorite, IRB, to make sure we can actually do the research.
Anyway, that's the update on this semester. We're all hyper-excited for the fall, when the really FUN part of our experiment happens. See you then for more updates!
In March, we attended the IMPACT conference, held at Northeastern University. It's a conference on student service, advocacy, and social action, and (in my opinion), it was an extremely rewarding experience. While the main focus of our research is centered around the University of Maryland, one of our goals is to assess how well our research would apply to other schools or in other places around the country. The conference gave us a great chance to talk to people from different backgrounds who were interested in our topic and see what is going on at other schools, as well as to find out whether the attitudes we discovered from our focus groups were farther-reaching. We learned a lot about methods that other people are using to reach out to youth voters. But more importantly, we learned a couple of key points that consistently get voters out and keep them interested. The first thing was the importance of peer-to-peer contact: approaching someone in person is much more effective than electronic or mechanized outreach (like form emails or pre-recorded phone messages). Also, in order to keep youth participation up, it is important that we, as a society, make civic engagement a part of everyday life once again, rather than letting it continue to be something that comes up once every few years. Overall, the focus that we gained was on sustainable engagement--making sure that whatever we do, it does more than just work now, it keeps working in the future.
After we came back from the conference, we got word back from the IRB: our survey had been approved for distribution. Yay us! So we uploaded our survey on surveymonkey.com, and for the months of April and May we sent out the link to everyone we could, asking that they take the survey. We also got paper copies printed and distributed those in classes and outside the dining hall on campus. All in all, we got almost 1000 surveys filled out. A couple of weeks ago, we sat down as a team and looked at the results and found two major trends. First, students want easier access to information on the candidates. This, we anticipated, for the most part. The other trend we saw kind of surprised me. Over 70% of the students we surveyed told us they were registered to vote at their home address. In retrospect, this makes sense, since most people I know registered in their high schools in assemblies and the like. But the reason this surprised me is because sooooo many GOTV efforts I've seen since getting to UMD have focused on re-registering voters at their College Park addresses. Anyway, based on this we developed our tactic for next semester!
Now, as finals have come to an end and everyone's moving home for the summer or getting into the groove of their internships, we've got a couple of (super-important) things to get done. First, we've gotta work the kinks out of the tactic we're planning on. Also, we're applying for additionally funding so we can actually implement the tactic. Third, we've got to re-apply to everyone's favorite, IRB, to make sure we can actually do the research.
Anyway, that's the update on this semester. We're all hyper-excited for the fall, when the really FUN part of our experiment happens. See you then for more updates!
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Update on the 2008 Election Campaign!
Today is a big day for the Democratic candidates with the largest remaining primaries held in
The candidates have been splitting their time campaigning in both states. Clinton said that "this election is about jobs, jobs, jobs" and "championed her proposal to suspend the federal gas tax for the summer" according to "Two Candidates, Two States and One Big Day" in the Washington Post. Bill Clinton has also been helping his wife campaign. He has been traveling to the small towns and rural areas where people would never expect him to go to where people “love him just for coming” (In Small Towns, Bill Clinton Finds A Campaign Niche, Washington Post).
Wednesday, April 2, 2008
Voting Technology : The Not-So-Simple Act of Casting a Ballot Lecture
Yesterday, our team had the opportunity to attend a lecture given by Dr. Paul Herrnson, Director of the Center for American Politics and Citizenship. Dr. Herrnson recently published a book entitled Voting Technology : The Not-So-Simple Act of Casting a Ballot. His lecture was based on his research findings on the subject of how voters respond to voting equipment. With the voting fiasco that occurred in the 2000 Presidential election, as well as the Help America Vote Act in 2002, there is much to learn on this subject.
Although Dr. Herrnson is not a get-out-the-vote advocate, his research is very important to our team. One of the main findings in our focus group was that voting is not as easy as it could be. Students complained about everything from obtaining an absentee ballot to actual mishaps of voting machines. Not being able to vote accurately is not only frustrating, but it undermines the actual effort an individual makes to actually go and vote.
In his research Dr. Herrnson found that poorly designed voting methods lead to big problems. The worst methods included systems with less visible computerization, while touch screens outperformed all other systems. To improve accuracy, it is important to give people more control over the voting process and present less information at a time.
How can we use Dr. Herrnson's findings? Well perhaps our get-out-the-vote tactic will focus on educating the student population about the proper procedures of voting. One may think that college students are tech savvy and do not need to be taught how to operate a voting system, but who knows? This could be why students opt not to vote - its too complicated.
All in all, Dr. Herrnson's research did not focus on what we are focusing on. But his lecture proved beneficial because his research delves deeper into one of the reasons students said they do not vote - lack of ease.
-alka
Although Dr. Herrnson is not a get-out-the-vote advocate, his research is very important to our team. One of the main findings in our focus group was that voting is not as easy as it could be. Students complained about everything from obtaining an absentee ballot to actual mishaps of voting machines. Not being able to vote accurately is not only frustrating, but it undermines the actual effort an individual makes to actually go and vote.
In his research Dr. Herrnson found that poorly designed voting methods lead to big problems. The worst methods included systems with less visible computerization, while touch screens outperformed all other systems. To improve accuracy, it is important to give people more control over the voting process and present less information at a time.
How can we use Dr. Herrnson's findings? Well perhaps our get-out-the-vote tactic will focus on educating the student population about the proper procedures of voting. One may think that college students are tech savvy and do not need to be taught how to operate a voting system, but who knows? This could be why students opt not to vote - its too complicated.
All in all, Dr. Herrnson's research did not focus on what we are focusing on. But his lecture proved beneficial because his research delves deeper into one of the reasons students said they do not vote - lack of ease.
-alka
Friday, March 21, 2008
Student Voting Bill!
The Maryland Student Voting Rights Act of 2008 was accepted unanimously for consideration by the House of Delegates. This bill, if passed, would require the state of Maryland's public universities and colleges to allow students to register to vote while they register for classes, and it would also assign a campus official to coordinate voter registration and education activities.
However, the bill still has a long way to go. It must be approved by two more committees before the House, and then the Senate, can vote on it. If the bill is passed, it will be implemented on July 1, allowing students to register to vote while registering for fall classes. Ryan Duffy, a legislative director for Justin Ross (the delegate who introduced the bill), stated that "the main goal is just to get the law enacted by the 2010 election cycle." This was stated in "Legislators pushing student voting bill" by Ken Pitts in the Diamondback. It would be great though, if the bill was passed in time for the 2008 election.
Also in the article, senator Jim Rosapepe stated that "I think they [the school] just aren't that interested in encouraging students to vote. I mean, not everybody at the university, but I think in Student Affairs they just aren't very interested in this stuff." This was interesting to me because I had not really thought about how the school could possibly be unwilling to cooperate with efforts to get out the vote. However, the school disagreed, citing examples of their involvement, including the placement of registration forms on the dorm beds. Officials at our school said that "the university has little incentive to impede students from voting."
I think that this act will help increase voter registration, but will it also help increase voter turnout? This is a really good idea though, and it's interesting because this topic of registering for voting when registering for classes was an idea that came up during the conference. It was one of the ideas that were brainstormed at one of the workshops. It would be amazing if this could be implemented not only at Maryland, but at colleges and universities all across the country.
~Sarah
However, the bill still has a long way to go. It must be approved by two more committees before the House, and then the Senate, can vote on it. If the bill is passed, it will be implemented on July 1, allowing students to register to vote while registering for fall classes. Ryan Duffy, a legislative director for Justin Ross (the delegate who introduced the bill), stated that "the main goal is just to get the law enacted by the 2010 election cycle." This was stated in "Legislators pushing student voting bill" by Ken Pitts in the Diamondback. It would be great though, if the bill was passed in time for the 2008 election.
Also in the article, senator Jim Rosapepe stated that "I think they [the school] just aren't that interested in encouraging students to vote. I mean, not everybody at the university, but I think in Student Affairs they just aren't very interested in this stuff." This was interesting to me because I had not really thought about how the school could possibly be unwilling to cooperate with efforts to get out the vote. However, the school disagreed, citing examples of their involvement, including the placement of registration forms on the dorm beds. Officials at our school said that "the university has little incentive to impede students from voting."
I think that this act will help increase voter registration, but will it also help increase voter turnout? This is a really good idea though, and it's interesting because this topic of registering for voting when registering for classes was an idea that came up during the conference. It was one of the ideas that were brainstormed at one of the workshops. It would be amazing if this could be implemented not only at Maryland, but at colleges and universities all across the country.
~Sarah
Wednesday, February 13, 2008
Increased Youth Voter Turnout in Primaries!!
The youth are voting! This year, youth are coming out from all over and casting their ballot in the primaries around the country. For example, in the democratic primaries Obama won the votes of 76 percent of Virginia Democrats under age 30 and 64 percent in Maryland. In both states, he did better than Clinton in nearly every age group, although Clinton had stronger support among older voters. Why is this the year for such a high turnout? Well after discussing the issue with my peers I realized that one reason is because of who is running. Obama, for example, came to the University of Maryland on February 12th. Thousands of students, including myself, waited in frigid weather for over an hour and a half to hear his 40 minute speech. The enthusiasm inside the Comcast Center was remarkable. Even my friends who vote republican were there to support him. This is why so many college students came out on Tuesday – because they finally found a candidate they believe in and can place their trust in. Many of the issues Obama discussed had to do with us – like increasing the minimum wage and ensuring ample employment opportunities post graduation - of course we would respond to that with much fervor…
But there has to be more – this is only what I’ve gathered at UMD…
According to CIRCLE stats, youth voter turnout increased in almost all of the states apart of "Super Tuesday”. This time around, candidates are really reaching out to our population. In fact, four of the main contenders, Obama, Clinton, McCain, and Huckabee, have sections on their campaign website directed at youth voters. Also, with applications on Facebook and MySpace, candidates are logging online to campaign.
With so many young people voting, we may have the power to take control of the election. The high turnout in the primaries is a good indicator of what could happen on November 4th. This is huge. The fact that our age group could select the next president is thrilling.
Going back to UMD, the voting process was improved upon this time. Instead of 4 machines, there were 12 voting machines at Ritchie Coliseum for 2,211 registered voters, and 15 units for the 2,837 assigned to Stamp. Students had to wait in line, but many were impressed with the improvement in efficiency. I even talked to some students who were in and out in less than 10 minutes. The University is taking the rights steps to encourage our students to vote. Small things, such as more voting machines, to big events like Obama, Huckabee, and Chelsea Clinton coming to campus, are attempted efforts to get students rallied up. Just the visible improvement from November 2007 provides our team with hope – and we are there to fill in the rest!
Happy Primaries!
-alka
But there has to be more – this is only what I’ve gathered at UMD…
According to CIRCLE stats, youth voter turnout increased in almost all of the states apart of "Super Tuesday”. This time around, candidates are really reaching out to our population. In fact, four of the main contenders, Obama, Clinton, McCain, and Huckabee, have sections on their campaign website directed at youth voters. Also, with applications on Facebook and MySpace, candidates are logging online to campaign.
With so many young people voting, we may have the power to take control of the election. The high turnout in the primaries is a good indicator of what could happen on November 4th. This is huge. The fact that our age group could select the next president is thrilling.
Going back to UMD, the voting process was improved upon this time. Instead of 4 machines, there were 12 voting machines at Ritchie Coliseum for 2,211 registered voters, and 15 units for the 2,837 assigned to Stamp. Students had to wait in line, but many were impressed with the improvement in efficiency. I even talked to some students who were in and out in less than 10 minutes. The University is taking the rights steps to encourage our students to vote. Small things, such as more voting machines, to big events like Obama, Huckabee, and Chelsea Clinton coming to campus, are attempted efforts to get students rallied up. Just the visible improvement from November 2007 provides our team with hope – and we are there to fill in the rest!
Happy Primaries!
-alka
Monday, February 11, 2008
Potomac Primaries Tomorrow: Where are you going to be?
Primaries in
On Friday, actor Kal Penn (that’s Kumar, of Harold & Kumar fame, currently on House and, last I heard, a visiting professor in the film department of UPenn—how cool would it be to take a class from Kumar?!) made a stop on campus to speak in support of Obama.
On Saturday, something like a thousand people turned up at the
Sunday saw Chelsea Clinton (who had all but disappeared from the public eye until relatively recently) stopping by Stamp to hold a relatively small Q & A session for her mom. Hillary herself was out in
And, of course, today saw the biggest event of them all. Barack Obama turned up on campus to speak at
All in all, I’d say this is a HUGE amount of attention being paid to the
I really wish I could have attended all four of these events, because I think it would have been very interesting to see what each of them had to say. Unfortunately, I was only able to make it to the Obama event today. But one thing that he said today really jumped out at me.
He mentioned how his campaign has been able to get young people involved. Then he said that the political pundits have been like, “so what? Howard Dean did the same thing, but it didn’t mean anything, because the young people didn’t show up to vote.” Now, Obama’s point in bringing this up was to point out that this year, young people
So here’s what I think. I think that we, as young people, need stay involved in this election process. We need to show that we are a force to be reckoned with. We need to prove those pundits wrong. Be it tomorrow, the next few months, this November, or any time for the rest of our lives: we need to be the generation that changes everyone’s minds. We need to show up at the polls and vote.
-Supraja
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