Because voting at a young age promotes a lifelong habit of civic engagement, the New Voters Project works to increase voter participation among 18- to 24-year-olds.
Results
2006 ElectionsIn fall 2006, the New
Voters Project worked on 80 college campuses in 22 states to boost
voter turnout. NCPIRG teamed up with state PIRGs across the country and forged alliances with student government leaders,
faculty and administrators and recruited over 1,100 students to lead or
volunteer on their campus. Our hardworking coalition partners and
student leaders registered 75,000 students to vote. Leading up to
Election Day, we made 94,000 personalized Get Out the Vote reminders
either over the phone or face-to-face.
The Center for
Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE)
measured the turnout increase between 2002 and 2006 in student-dense
precincts where we and other partners focused our efforts. The analysis
focused on a set of 36 precincts in Ohio, Connecticut, Iowa, Colorado,
and Michigan and found that average turnout in those precincts
increased by 157 percent over 2002. Nationally, the increase in youth
voter turnout was four times the rate of the general population’s
increase (4 percent for youth, 1 percent overall).
2005 Elections
The New Voters Project focused on youth voter registration and
turnout in eight states in 2005. We registed over 18,000 voters and
made more than 48,000 get-out-the-vote contacts.
An analysis
of raw data by the Center for Information &
Research on Civic Learning & Engagement (CIRCLE) at the University
of Maryland looked at turnout in New Jersey and Virginia, the two
states with major off-year elections. Their study indicates that young
people voted in bigger numbers in the
gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia
in 2005 than they did in 2001.
2004 ElectionsIn 2004, USPIRG’s New Voters Project
succeeded in becoming the largest grassroots youth voter mobilization
effort in this country's history. In North Carolina, we registered over
32,000 18- to 24-year-olds to vote, and contacted thousands more during
the get-out-the-vote phase of the campaign.Our work helped stop the
decline in youth voter turnout. Surveys show that youth turnout
increased to 47 percent — an eleven percentage point increase over 2000 — with an astonishing 11.5 million 18-to-24 year-olds casting ballots.
