As The World Watches On: Youth Participation in the US Elections

With less than 24 hours until the United States elects a new president and consequently ushers in a new era, scouring the blogosphere for posts about the election seemed logical. In the US, the youth vote has received an unprecedented amount of attention this year. Both optimists and pessimists have captured headlines predicting youth turn-out and their effect on the polls tomorrow. Candidates and get-out-the-vote organizations alike have fought to capture the hearts of young Americans using innovative forms of technology, media, and celebrity culture (as evidenced by the Vote or Die ad campaign, seen on the left featuring Paris Hilton). Yet historically the youngest segment of American voters has been the least likely to vote. At CIRCLE, a non-partisan research center focusing on civic engagement of young Americans, studies have found that the youth vote dropped steadily from 1972 to 2000. A surge in the 2004 elections still left less than 50% of young Americans actually voting, the lowest turn-out of any age group. With the world watching, a focus this election cycle has been how to get and keep young citizens engaged. This week I felt motivated to comment on a post that talks about a popular online video that can be personalized to show a fake post-election broadcast revealing the name of a single person whose failure to vote led to Senator John McCain’s victory by one vote. Featured on the New York Times political blog The Caucus, it stresses the great lengths groups have gone to urge American youth to vote and the prominence of the issue in national media.

Secondly, I used a site called Voices Without Votes which seeks to highlight conversations in the global blogosphere about the US election. There I found a post written by a young Brazilian journalist, Paula Góes, on Brazilian perspectives of the candidates. I found the juxtaposition between Brazil and the US particularly relevant because Brazil is one of a handful of countries that has a controversial compulsory voting process, where every literate citizen between the ages of 18 and 70 is required to vote. Although beyond the scope of this week's post, it is worth questioning whether compulsory voting in Brazil is a more effective way of engaging minority voters such as youth than the US system. At first glance it may seem to be so, but in Brazil it also makes it easier for corrupt politicians to buy apathetic citizens' votes and to make many resentful of the political process. Both Brazil and the United States are large, diverse nations facing a myriad of issues involving democratic inclusion of minority groups. They are also becoming so interconnected that the importance this election will have on foreigners' everyday lives is clear. I have included my comments on both blog posts below, though you can also read then in context by following the links.

"Using the Blame Game to Get Out the Vote"

Comment:

Upon reading your article, my first reaction as a young American was sadness that being “humiliated” into voting is a successful technique! I can only imagine how many young Iraqis or Mexican citizens would die to have a say in the election of the American president, yet the youngest age-group of voters in the US is the most historically apathetic. But as I continued down your post, my optimism (and perhaps idealism) returned and I began to take pride in all of the innovative ways young people are being targeted in election campaigns. While researching youth using technology around the world for a university project, I have been inspired by the different ways my generation is becoming socially active. In this election alone young people are using text-messages, online video-conferences, Facebook and a variety of other tools to get involved. A survey done at the Harvard Institute of Politics this fall even found that over two-thirds of 18-24 year olds see political engagement as an effective way of solving our nation’s problems.

I was also curious about your opinion on the overall effect these turn-out efforts will have. Looking back to the 2004 elections, all of the talk about youth registering in droves ended up having a very small effect on the presidential outcome. Do you think that the new era of interactive, individualized technology will have a more positive effect on the numbers of youth voters this time around? You cite in your post that young people are statistically unlikely to go to the polls. Does this stem from historically low levels of out-reach to the young American population or is it a more systematic issue emanating from the overall structure of our election processes? One website I recently came across, WhyTuesday.org questions why our nation lags behind almost all others in voter-turnout and what practical solutions we can take to change the act of voting from a right to an imperative. In other words, will these innovative, get-out-the-vote tools have any effect on voter participation without reforming the current system? Thank you for your time, and I would also like to thank you for your focus on the benefits that technology can have when put to positive youth and for creating avenues for dialogue on the youth vote this election cycle.

"Obama or McCain - Who is Better (Or Less Bad) For Brazil?"

Comment:

I wanted to write and thank you for all of your interesting posts. I spent a semester studying abroad in Brazil this spring and found it fascinating to talk to my Brazilian friends about the contentious primary race between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Now that I am home, it is nice to read your posts and stay in touch with the Brazilian perspective as the election nears. It is interesting that you open your post by saying that this is the first US election where Brazilians clearly see issues close to their heart at stake. Do you think this is due to an increasing interconnectedness arising from globalization, or perhaps the severity of problems we are facing in present-day? I indeed often heard my peers in Salvador say that the rest of the world should be able to vote for the American president because what he does so affects other nations, which I always found interesting.

One thing that interests me is to compare is youth participation in the US and Brazil. In the United States, my generation has the lowest turn-out rates of any age group. In Brazil this problem seems to be solved by the compulsory voting system, but while there I found that many expressed resentment at being forced to vote. While compulsory voting should, in theory, increase minority participation in Brazilian politics, it seemed as though the system remains very elitist and white, not very different from politics in the US. From an outsider’s perspective looking in to the American system, how do you think we could get more young people involved? Would a compulsory voting system help the issue or simply mask youth apathy?

One last comment I would like to make is on the popularity of Barack Obama in Brazil (see the Brazilian Obama ad on the right). In a past post, “Will the Elections End up In Another Bradley Effect,” you discuss the racial factor of Barack Obama. The US and Brazil both have a deep racial history, though this is caused by different historical factors that today manifest quite differently. It is interesting that so many Brazilians support Barack Obama (I also saw his face splashed across billboards all over Brazil), when there are so few Afro-Brazilian politicians in relation to their large percentage of the population. Do you think the popularity of Obama in Brazil relates to evolving racial ideals held by the rising generation? Many in the US contribute this to Obama’s popularity amongst the young generation; could it be that Brazilian and American youth are beginning to look more alike as globalization brings us closer together?