Youth Vote? What Youth Vote?

This is going to be a personal observation of my voting experiences from Friday. If y'all would like to talk about anecdotes from what you are seeing today, feel free to do so in the comments.

I post it for one reason: to remind everyone that there is no such thing as the "youth vote."

It never materializes. Ever. It is the least reliable of all demographics. And, as James Carville once said, there is a name for campaigns that depend on the youth vote to succeed: "losers."

On Friday I was in my home state for the Halloween weekend. It so happens that it is one of the big battleground states this year. So I took advantage of the early voting period. I also was able to follow up on an idea a friend sent me and helped transport some members of the local VFW to the polls. It was a great day, and I met a lot of true patriots.

But here is what I noticed the most: in a line that took 3 hours (!!!) to get from start to finish, I saw a grand total of 2 individuals who were representative of the "youth vote."

Why is this important? It's not. It's an anecdote. However, I did see hundreds of people in line. I saw senior citizens. I saw veterans. I saw married men and women. I saw people with their children. I saw African-Americans. I saw Hispanics. I saw Asians. I saw Whites. I was in line behind a blue collar democrat (a guy who fixes air conditioners) who was voting for McCain. I saw upscale professionals. I saw handicapped people. I saw PUMA's wearing Hillary pins and talking loudly about how much they hated Obama.

I saw large numbers of every demographic you could think of naming. (I was the representative of the "guy who places too much significance on the random allotment of people he sees in a crowd" demographic.)

But the "yutes"? Nowhere to be found.

Which struck me as interesting. Because this early voting center is smack dab between 3 community colleges. It's the assigned precinct for folks who go to those schools or who live/commute to school in/from this general area of the county.

What made this even more fun to observe, was that of the 2 college aged kids I saw, one left to "come back when the line was shorter". The other, wearing the trendy Obama-Iconography t-shirt (sub-headed "I voted for THAT ONE") stuck around.

Now maybe they showed up on other days. Maybe they plan to show up and hold a facebook flash mob today. I tend to doubt it though.

But anecdotes are fun. And they help keep morale up. So share yours with me.

But only after you vote. Because every vote one of us "non-youths" cast cancels out or gains us a plus up for a dirty stinking snowboarding hippy stoner who didn't.

That's right. I'm looking at you Colorado.

Vote.

posted by Jack M. at 01:35 PM

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