With the long-awaited presidential elections just a few weeks away, public attention is high. But what about the voters, especially college students, who just don’t care?
The 18- to 25-year-old age group, historically, has had the lowest voter turnout in each election. MTV’s Rock the Vote campaign works to energize and register young voters. Political involvement and turnout of young voters is increasing. According to statistics gathered by Rock the Vote, in the 2008 primaries and caucuses, voter turnout by 18- to 29-year-olds increased by 103 percent or by 2,412,329 votes from the 2004 primary elections. In Tennessee alone, young voter turnout increased by 209 percent or by 95,942 votes.
Nathan Kelly, associate professor in political science, agrees that young voters will turn out in larger numbers than in the past.
“While the level of participation among young people had ebbed and flowed over the past several decades, I think there is little doubt that those in the under-25 category are more energized in this election cycle than in recent memory,” Kelly said.
Democratic and Republican coordinators on campus are having opposite experiences with student involvement.
John DiChiara, senior in political science and president of the College Republicans, said his group has had trouble getting support from volunteers and attributes this apathy to the extended length of campaigning for this presidential race.
“And as the election gets closer, we’re doing phone banks for the candidate,” DiChiara said. “And we’re having trouble getting volunteers this year. If you look back a couple years ago, or even back to the senate races in ’06, the volunteers were everywhere. Everybody was talking about, everybody was following it. Not that people aren’t following it now … I’d say participation level is way down. People are just tired of hearing about it.”
On the other hand, Ian Orr, junior in the College Scholars Program and Tennessee deputy state coordinator for Students for Obama, said they have had no problem recruiting UT volunteers for the Obama campaign.
“We’ve created a listserv that ranges around 700 people that we e-mail that are volunteers,” Orr said. “The week before the primaries, we actually had 70 active volunteers on campus in one week. … We have 20 people camping out (Sunday) night to be the first people to early vote at the UC (Monday). We have about 120 volunteers who’ll work with us up through election day. We’ve had absolutely no problem with apathy in the Obama campaign.”
Michael Gant, professor of political science, said young voter excitement may be a result of the presence of Barack Obama on the Democratic ticket.
“Obama’s appeal to the youngest age cohorts is really quite strong,” Gant said. “And he’s generally seen as attractive, as charismatic, and he’s a great speaker and … a motivation for involvement by younger voters.”
Orr agreed with Gant on this point.
“I can say that as a student and as a young voter, Barack Obama gets me a lot more excited than any other candidate and obviously he gets me a lot more excited than a 72-year-old Bush carbon copy,” Orr said.
Despite the charisma of Obama and the efforts of political groups on campus, some UT students remain uninterested. The campaigns’ efforts may even prove to be retroactive.
“Yeah, I kind of think it’s disgusting to be honest,” Kyle Hovious, undecided sophomore, said. “It’s like (the campaign workers) care more about the candidates themselves than about the common man. If you’re not with them, you can just go to hell for all they care.”
Additionally, with the electoral college system mandating a winner-take-all result in each state, some students wonder if their votes really count at all. As Tennessee is a traditionally Republican state, Democratic supporters are particularly concerned about the impact of their votes.
Orr addressed this concern.
“There’re a lot of volunteers who say, ‘What’s the point in Tennessee?’ — especially in East Tennessee, which … is definitely the reddest part of the state,” Orr said. “What I tell them is Tennessee went blue for Clinton twice. And while Barack Obama’s a very different candidate than Clinton, … there’s about a 50,000-voter margin that decides which way the state goes. And we’ve registered well over 50,000 voters to cover that spread. So we’re very confident that Tennessee is in play.”
DiChiara, however, is confident in his candidate’s support in Tennessee.
“Especially in Tennessee, Tennessee’s going to be red,” DiChiara said. “It’s going to McCain. No question about that. McCain isn’t putting any money into Tennessee, and Obama isn’t either. Because it would be a waste of their money to do so.”
Gant encouraged students to vote regardless of whether they thought their vote would “count” or not.
“You go to the polls. You vote. You’re part of something larger than yourself, which I think is important,” Gant said. “But just as much, the more people vote, the more alive the electoral system, and that in and of itself makes it important. You’re part of this democracy when you exercise the vote. You might lose, but the next time you might win. So you need to have some level of commitment or involvement in that.”
If young voters continue to turn out in low numbers, candidates will continue to ignore the issues that are important to them, Kelly said.
“If a young person’s non-participation is part of a pattern of low participation on the part of young people, then elected officials are less likely to be concerned about the preferences of young people,” Kelly said. “In a sense, not participating can create a vicious cycle.”
Encouraging students to take action during this election season, Gant agreed.
Gant said, “If you think, ‘There’s nothing in it for me, my vote won’t make any difference.’ Then you get ignored by the parties and the candidates. And then there really isn’t anything for you. And the only way to change that is to vote.”
To end the “vicious cycle” of non-participation, young voters can participate in early voting at the UC Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.
