After thousands of voter registrations, volunteer shifts, music festivals, and events on campus, it’s now time to get out the vote. There isn’t much time to celebrate, but we should take a moment to remind everyone that your generation puts up some serious numbers. With the passage of voter registration deadlines in over 26 states across the nation, Rock the Vote surpassed its goal for registering young voters this fall. As of Oct. 4, Rock the Vote more than 225,000 individuals have used Rock the Vote’s tool to register to vote in the Nov. 2 midterm elections. This figure exceeded our 2010 goal of 200,000 registrations, more than quadrupled the number of registrations processed in 2006, and represents the largest midterm registration effort in our organization’s history.
This milestone is really about you. With almost a quarter of a million people registered or re-registered, your generation is clearly ready to rock – to demand that candidates take your issues and your votes seriously. Now that you’re registered, candidates should know that you won’t be ignored and you won’t be talked down to. They should understand not campaigning to you, those who will shape the future of our country, could cost them an election. We know you’re not afraid, and they should too. We know you’re ready to vote fearlessly on November 2nd.
So how did we all get connected to make this happen? We reached out through millions of email reminders and text messages, featured tweets about registration deadlines by dozens of stars – including Maroon 5, Tim McGraw, Pink and Perez Hilton – tens of thousands of Facebook messages, radio partners playing public service announcements featuring stars like Adrian Grenier, Mike Posner , Nas and Pharrell Williams (NERD) on outlets around the country, working in conjunction with more than 1,000 online voter registration partners who used our tool to register voters on their sites, campus newspaper ads in key states, and appearances on major news outlets like CNN, MSNBC, C-SPAN, PBS and ABC.
On the ground in youth-dense communities like Columbus, OH, our ground teams pushed hard to register young voters and reported that their peers were energetic.
Ohio’s State Coordinator Rob Abraham said of Monday’s outreach efforts at Ohio State University, “We had all hands on deck. Students and volunteers across the OSU community realized the opportunity to make a final and strong push before the voter registration deadline so that young people could have a voice in November. All across campus, Buckeyes tirelessly devoted the day to tabling, phone calling, texting, and knocking on doors so that their fellow students could join them at the polls on November 2nd.”
Ultimately, our work here at Rock the Vote is about more than hitting a voter registration number. It is about ensuring that the real issues of your generation are being addressed, and we could never help build your political power without your unmatched enthusiasm. We could never achieve unprecedented levels of engagement without our volunteers and the passion of your hugely influential voting bloc. Now, as registration deadlines across the country pass, we’re turning our focus to get out the vote efforts asking young Americans to help us make history once again by pledging in record numbers to Vote Fearlessly on Nov. 2. With your help, we know anything is possible.
