NY Times wrote Wednesday:
Maybe it started with Howard Dean, or maybe it was Al Gore, or maybe it was as long ago as when Bill Clinton talked about his underwear on MTV, but campaigns are putting a lot of energy into courting the youth vote. Links to the online hangouts of the under-25 set, YouTube, MySpace and Facebook among them, are all over the candidates’ home pages, especially those of the Democratic candidates. Some campaigns have hired youth vote coordinators to mobilize young voters.
The question is; does it work? Are voters under the age of 25 going to turn out in record numbers? History suggests it is unlikely, reports the Post.
OK, but hold on. The Post also writes:
One of those peaks, one of those interesting elections, came in 2004. Many political operatives are hoping for a repeat in 2008. Voting among all age groups was up significantly in 2004, up four points from 2000, according to Thom File, a voting analyst with the Census Bureau. But among 18-24 year olds, there was close to an 11 point increase, the greatest increase of any age group. In 2000, 36 percent of 18-24 year olds voted. In 2004, 47 percent of 18-24 year olds voted.
Can we link this increase to the blog revolution and the effort campaigns put in to reaching the young voter generation through the Internet in the 2004 election?
Probably to early to tell! But...
What if the numbers increase even more in 2008? Could we then say that cyber-campaigning makes more young voters vote? I can’t wait to see the surveys about this.
The Post’s article can be read here.
Thanks for leading me to the article Paull!
-Espen