Youth Vote on the Rise!
Something big is happening in our democracy – young people are voting. Already, young people turned out in record numbers at the nation’s first caucus and primary contests of 2008. The youth vote almost doubled in New Hampshire, tripled in Iowa and quadrupled in Tennessee.
Right here in New Jersey, the energy among students was palpable.
For 25 years, NJPIRG and our sister Student PIRGs across the country have worked to mobilize young voters to the polls to reinvigorate our country’s democracy.
Since 2004 alone, we’ve registered more than 9,000 young (18-30 yrs) New Jersey voters. And our project works.
- In 2006, 218,000 18-29 year olds voted in New Jersey, an increase of 62,000 voters or 5 percent over 2002 turnout.
- A 2005 analysis that focused on five New Jersey precincts with a relatively high concentration of college students that were the focus of non-partisan youth voter mobilization efforts of NJPIRG, found that youth voter turnout increased by an average of 19.9 percent.
2008 is no different.
In partnership with our sister chapters across the country, the NJPIRG Student Chapters played a key role this primary season in convincing the candidates to pay attention to young people and wiring campuses to turn out the youth vote.
After registering 3,000 students to vote this spring, student leaders with NJPIRG launched a massive get out the vote push on Rutgers campuses, organizing events such as ‘Take a Shot of Democracy,’ in which students handed out red and blue cups of soda at dining halls and asked students to pledge to vote. A NJPIRG Student even appeared on NBC’s Today Show to discuss issues important to youth.
Read more about our work in New Jersey and across the country to turn out the youth vote in the election so far and our plans for the coming months here.
