Slight Increase in Youth Vote During 2006 Elections

Posted on November 8, 2006

The German Press Agency reports that there was a slight increase in voting by voters ages 18 to 29 during yesterday's midterm elections. The turnout for this age group was 13%. That seems very small but it is a 2% increase over the 2002 turnout of 11%. This age group favored Democratic candidates by 22% according to the news report.

Washington-Younger voters turned out in higher numbers in Tuesday's US congressional elections, giving a lift to Democratic candidates in a contest that gave the party control of the US House of Representatives for the first time in 12 years. "This is a new generation," Hans Riemer, political director of Rock the Vote, an organization that seeks to mobilize young voters, told Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa. "They're more involved, more engaged, and less cynical."

Exit polls showed that voters between the ages of 18 and 29 cast 13 per cent of all votes, up from 11 per cent in the 2002 elections, the last non-presidential national election. Voter turnout is typically higher in presidential elections.

That increase is important because the proportion of young voters has become smaller in the same time period, causing the increase to outpace the growth in turnout among all voters, Rock the Vote said.

Young voters traditionally favour Democratic candidates and did so by a 22 point margin on Tuesday, the organization said, citing exit polls.

MySpace had a special section targeting voter apathy this year and so did Facebook. Unfortunately, no one bothered to poll the voters to see if they read blogs or use social networks but we have seen in past surveys that the younger demographic is more likely to both blog and read blogs. They are also frequent users of social networks.