Young Voters in the District

Everyone’s got something to say about young voters this year. Will young voters turnout? Do young voters care?

I wanted to see what young people thought. I figured if there are tons of articles online predicting what young people will do (or not do) in November, we have a right to input our own predictions on the actions of our peers.

I was particularly interested in interviewing young people, especially in the neighborhood where I live. There are so many young people who are dressed in perfectly pressed business suits, rushing and running to what I assume to be an internship. I think that it’s a pretty cool connection I share with thousands of strangers who live down the street from me- we have all ventured off to (in my case a completely foreign city), away from home and most of what we know, to make difference and propel our careers, futures and perhaps even the futures of others.

So, on my way to the Metro this morning, I decided to put down all those conflicting articles and hit the streets myself. I stopped several young people in my path. Some were willing to chat up a storm while others wouldn’t give me their first name. I talked to one person on our seven flight journey in the elevator in my building, two while standing on the corner waiting for the light to change and another just randomly walking on the street.

Ian, 23 thought that young voters are probably taken seriously because of the increase in focus on young voters and their impact on politics.

Tanaz, 29, disagreed however and said that young voters were not taken seriously. She said, “People try to do outreach but unfortunately, young people just don’t vote…it’s our fault that we aren’t taken seriously.”

Ryan, 21, said that, “Yeah, we are taken seriously because candidates see us as a swing vote.”

On my Metro ride into work, I tried to make sense of the whole thing. In my Chemistry class, during lab, there is always a conclusions section in my notes. However, I don’t think this blog post will have any “conclusions.”

What do you think?

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Rock the Vote Bio: Rock the Vote was founded in 1990 to organize artists and fight against censorship of musicians. Since then we've evolved to focus on empowering young people to get involved in the political process. We use pop culture, peer-to-peer organizing, and the latest technology to raise visibility of politics and demystify the process of registering to vote. @rockthevote Email the author at: blog(at)rockthevote.com

This entry was posted on Saturday, July 26th, 2008 at 10:07 am and is filed under young voters. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.