I apologize to my loyal readers for my recent dearth of columns, but we’ve been very busy over here at Smackdown Your Vote! After the Rock the Vote Bus Tour and an appearance at Connecticut’s own Sacred Heart University, your political correspondent was apparently Smackdowned out and contracted some sort of illness. I have my people investigating if it was a virus planted in some elaborate scheme to silence the youth vote. We’re looking at the AARP first.
But it looks as if it’s going to take a massive plague to keep young people from turning out on November 2nd in record numbers! The latest research, hand delivered to me by our friends at Harvard’s Institute of Politics, shows that more college students than ever before will be voting, and that they actually believe in the system again.
Experts believe the higher than average turnout is linked to massive get-out-the-vote efforts, and although SDYV is not named directly, I think we all know to whom they are referring (wink, wink). When we were setting our goals at an increase in 18-30 voter turnout by 10 percent and “2 million more in 2004,” I told everyone that we were setting them too low, but did anybody listen to me? No.
Here are some of the fun numbers. 84 percent of college students surveyed said they will “definitely be voting.” That’s up from 62 percent only six months ago, and up from 50 percent at this point in the last presidential election. Even though historically not every one of these “likely voters” actually votes, it’s still up hugely. In the wrestling business, we call those people who say they will vote and never actually vote “liars,” and as we learned from Fit Finlay during the casting special of the Million Dollar Tough Enough last week on SmackDown!, those people can expect to never be on Tough Enough 5.
Eighty-seven percent of college students are registered to vote, again the highest number in the history of the IOP survey. Over half the students claim they were “encouraged to register by an individual or a group” (of which I could be considered either), so our registration efforts have been successful as well.
And talk about engagement – 87 percent are following the campaign closely, and 75 percent have discussed the election in the last 24 hours. I’m happy they measured those statistics, because one of the major arguments that haters have is, “Do we really want all these young uninformed voters deciding who is President?” I usually turn on the charm and say, “They’re just offsetting the old uninformed voters, jerk.”
The old people in the crowd tend to roll their eyes at that. I thought one guy at Sacred Heart wanted to fight me from the look he gave me, but he obviously smartened up. Now instead on instigating conflict I can say that young people are informed, probably from reading The18-30 National Voter Issues Paper on smackdownyourvote.com. (If you haven’t read Bush, Kerry, and everyone else’s responses to the VIP, you’re running out of time to do so.)
In that 18-30 VIP, we state that our motivation for putting it together comes from our desire to break the vicious cycle of apathy and neglect for youth in politics – apathy on the part of young potential voters, and neglect on the part of politicians. If that cycle were to continue, we’d continue to get lower participation, and old people would rule this land with an iron fist, with low cost prescription drugs and early bird specials for everyone!
It appears that we’ve been incredibly successful in breaking this cycle. Cynicism in politics has gone out of style faster than Ashlee Simpson after her failed lip-synching on Saturday Night Live. Nearly nine out of 10 college students believe politics is relevant to their lives, up from under two-thirds. While four years ago half of us believed political involvement yield no tangible results, now it’s only a quarter. In 2000, three out of four believed that elected officials are “motivated by selfish reasons.” Now it’s only 60 percent.
Sixty percent!? Wow, that still seems kind of high. More than half of college students don’t believe politicians are genuine pubic servants … that I can see. There do seem to be aspects of the system that are broken, and the amount of wealth required to become an elected official is one of them. We’ll work on changing that for the next election.
What’s the point of sharing all these statistics? Peer pressure, plain and simple. Dude, everyone else is voting, why don’t you do it, too? It worked for the cigarette companies, right?
I see it like this. Voting is like being invited to a party that you aren’t sure is going to be cool. You say you are going to go to keep your options open, and because if you say you are going, other people are more likely to go as well. But you can always back out at the last minute if you think it’s all hype and no one else is showing up either.
I’m here to tell you that the party is definitely on for November 2nd, and everyone is going to be there, so you might as well come too. You don’t have to worry about showing up at the polls and being the only person there under 30. So grab some friends and go make your voice heard. You vote, you win, baby.
Return to commentaries.