In a country where most young people spend more time concentrating on which of their favorite reality TV stars to vote for, University students proved they do care about political issues yesterday by heading to the polls.
Such interest in the primaries shows what a strong force young people will be in the November elections, said New Jersey Public Interest and Research Group Student Chapters board chair, Sarah Clader, a Rutgers College senior.
"Today was exciting," Clader said. "[NJPIRG members] were out on campus asking students to sign a pledge to vote and the response was good. There was definitely a buzz on campus."
Approximately 500 voters, consisting of students registered on College Avenue and members of the surrounding neighborhoods, cast their votes at Lincoln Elementary School. This represented an increase in how many more students turned out to vote in this election as opposed to the amount that voted in the past, Clader said.
Since 2004, NJPIRG has been running a nationwide non-partisan voter registration and mobilization campaign called the New Voters Project. The objective has been to get politicians to pay closer attention to young people and the issues most important to them, Clader said.
This spring, NJPIRG plans to work with RU Voting? and a coalition of other groups on campus to build up a Vote 2008 team.
The youth vote had been in decline ever since 18 to 20-year-olds first got the right to vote. But in 2004 and 2006, the youth vote skyrocketed, Clader said.
"Our generation is the generation that's changing the trend of youth voting," she said. "Often, young people get kind of frustrated because they feel political candidates mostly talk about issues that don't matter to them, so we're excited about getting young people's voices heard and getting candidates to pay attention about the issues that matter to us."
Young people have been influential because the youth vote tripled in the Iowa caucuses, and both the winners attributed their victories to the youth vote, she said.
John Weingart, the associate director of the Eagleton Institute of Politics, said there was a large turn out of young voters. This could mean many things for future elections.
"We are coming out to the polls in big numbers, and the candidates are paying attention," Clader said. "Young people have been voting in big numbers in the past couple of elections, but now it's finally paying off."
She said more than the typical number of young people came out to vote because, for this election, candidates visited college campuses and worked harder to engage students.
"We showed [the candidates] we are a generation that will go out and vote, so they need to pay attention to us," she said.
More candidates than ever before have come out to college campuses and have even tried to reach young people via Facebook, MySpace and YouTube debates, because young people have shown they are an important voting block, she said.
"In an ideal world, if we keep voting in big numbers, the candidates will really have to answer to the issues that students are worried about," Clader said.
Alpha Phi Alpha President Justin Darko, a Livingston College senior, said the fraternity tabled at Brower Commons on the College Avenue campus yesterday to help students register to vote in November as part of the organization's national program, A Voteless People is a Hopeless People. Over 40 students were registered on site.
"The atmosphere at Rutgers really encourages students to get out there and make informed decisions about issues that are going to effect us," Darko said. "One of the major ways to gain a voice is to vote and to get the candidates to focus on issues like the economy. Many students are worried about getting jobs after graduation."
