FAST FACTS:

✔ Asking a young person (aged 18-

25) to vote raises the likelihood

they will vote by 8-12 percentage

points.

Polls show younger and older 

voters agree on issues

Although much of the public perceives political

activism among youth as centered on social issues,

public polls and other research conducted during the

2004 election season demonstrate that young voters

are concerned with many of the same issues as their

adult counterparts. According to a Newsweek.com

and Genext poll of 18-to-29 year olds in February

2004, youth voters are most concerned about unemployment, the economy and national security issues.

The environment — a traditional rallying point

for young activists — is considered the most important issue facing the United States by only six percent of young voters according to the

poll.

Election

FOCUS

March 31, 2004 U.S. Department of State ISSUE 1 • NO 7

Mark Hugo Lopez, Research Director at the Center for Information and

Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), and a Professor of

Economics at the University of Maryland, spoke to Washington File staff writer

Alexandra Abboud about Youth Voting and the 2004 Presidential Election. 

Q: How Important is the youth vote in the 

United States today?

LOPEZ: Young voters represent about 18-20 million votes, depending on what age

group we’re looking at, and that’s a tremendous number of votes. In 1992, about 20

million young people between the ages of 18 and 29 turned out to vote. And in the

2000 election, about18 million young voters participated in the election. 

That represents a swing of about two million people. Youth voter mobilizaYouth Voting and the 2004 Election:

An Interview with Mark Lopez

(continued on page 2)

(continued on page 2)

To receive this newsletter 

via a listserv go to:

 http://www.usembassy.de/mail

Youth Voters Concerned about the 

Economy; National Security 

Inside This Issue:

• Youth Voters Concerned 

about The Economy; 

National Security . . . . . . page1

• Youth Voting and the 2004

Election:

An Interview with 

Mark Lopez . . . . . . . . . . page 1

• Campaign Highlight: 

The Mobilization of Young Voters:

The Role of NGO’s and Other

Groups . . . . . . . . . . . . . . page 5

— Center for Information and 

Research on Civic Learning

and Engagement (CIRCLE)

April Spruell, right, a junior at Allen

University in Columbia, S.C., participates

in a voter registration drive. (AP Photo/Lou

Krasky
tion campaigns such as Rock the Vote

and the World Wrestling

Entertainment Group’s Smackdown

Your Vote! campaign, are all pushing to

get another two million young people

to vote in the 2004 election over the

2000 election. That number would

equal the number of youths that voted

in 1992 and could also be enough

votes to swing an election. 

And so you will probably hear a

lot of organizations talking about the

impact, or the potential impact that

young people could have, because they

do represent a large group. They can

swing elections if they're mobilized

and therefore, a lot of organizations

are trying to mobilize young people to

get involved. 

Q: The voting age in the

United States was lowered

from 21 years of age to 

18 years of age with the 

ratification of the 26th

Amendment to the U.S.

Constitution in 1971. Have

young voters been taking

advantage of this right to

vote since then?

LOPEZ: Youth voter turnout among

18 to 25 year olds since 1972 — the

first presidential election where young

people between 18 and 20 could vote

Contrast that with young voters’

concern about the economy — the poll

showed 25 percent of young voters ranking it the most important issue — and it

appears that concerns of young voters are

almost identical to that of older voters. 

David Skaggs, Executive Director of

the Center for Democracy & Citizenship

Program at the Council for Excellence in

Government and former U.S.

Congressman (D-CO-2nd), is not surprised that young voters are concerned

with the same issues as older voters. 

According to former Congressman

Skaggs, research from his organization,

which includes the Campaign for Young

Voters, a Web-based campaign to help

Congressional candidates win over voters

ages 18-25, “reconfirmed the proposition

that the top three or four issues for

younger people at any time are going to

look a lot like the top three or four issues

for older people.” 

The difference however, will be in

the way the candidates frame the debate

on these issues with younger candidates,

he said. “You might deal with social

security with an older audience in terms

of protecting it and making sure that benefits are there,” said Congressman

Skaggs. “Its relevance to younger audiences will have to do with the fact that

they’re going to be footing the

bill...because it’s coming out of their

taxes for the next forty years.” 

When addressing the economy — an

issue that is of great importance to young

voters according to recent polls —

Congressman Skaggs noted that while

for younger voters the concern might be

lack of new jobs, older voters fear losing

their current job. It is essentially the same

overall issue, but with different focus

points, and candidates will need to

understand and address these differences

if they hope to connect to younger voters,

he said.

Congressman Skaggs was quick to

point out, however, that addressing a similar issue in a different way does not

mean that candidates should adjust their

overall behavior for a younger audience.

“Candidates think they have to behave

differently for a younger audience,” he

said. “That’s exactly the wrong thing to

do as younger audiences are even more

insistent on authenticity and being yourself than are older audiences.”

And how can candidates insure that

young voters feel their issues are being

addressed? “The main thing candidates

need to do is ask,” said Congressman

Skaggs. “As with any potential voter,

young voters like to be taken seriously

and they like to be asked for their opinion and support.” ■

ELECTION FOCUS 2004

2 ELECTION FOCUS 2004

The U.S. Department of State is pleased to present its election coverage newsletter, Election Focus 2004. The 

newsletter will provide non-partisan coverage of the U.S. election process, featuring articles, interviews, public opinion

polls, and other information on the presidential primaries, debates, conventions and campaign activities of the major 

presidential candidates.

Election Focus 2004 is produced by the Democracy and Human Rights team in the Bureau of International Information

Programs.

— BUREAU OF —

INTERNATIONAL 

INFORMATION

PROGRAMS

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

(continued from page 1)

(continued from page 1)
— was at about 50-55 percent. Since

then, it’s steadily dropped by 13 percentage points. The only exception

was the 1992 presidential election

where there was a huge spike in voter

turnout among young people. In 1992,

the youth voter turnout almost

matched that of 1972. 

Q: What was the reason 

for the spike in youth voting

in the 1992 election?

LOPEZ: There are several possible

reasons for the upward spike in 1992.

Perhaps the two most obvious reasons

are first, the election was a contested

election and second, because there

were three candidates running — Ross

Perot, Bill Clinton, and George Bush

— young voters felt like they had a

diverse choice in candidates.

A lot of pollsters that I’ve talked

to have suggested that having an independent candidate actually tends to

bring out young people more.

And this is important, because we

know that about a third of all young

people are independents.

Q: Are there any indications

that the decline in youth

voter turnout is reversing?

LOPEZ: We were hoping to see some

indication that youth voter turnout was

rising this year in early Democratic

primaries; however, there is mixed evidence that youth voter turnout will be

up this year. While more young people

participated in the Democratic primaries this year than they did in 2000, this

year there was no contested

Republican primary. So, overall, in

2000, more people voted in both the

Democratic and Republican primaries

than have voted in just the Democratic

primaries this year. 

Therefore, it’s misleading to say

that voter turnout is up, just because

the Democratic numbers are up. This

is particularly a problem in states

where Independents can vote in either

the democratic or republican primary

or both. 

Q: You’ve mentioned 

organizations such as 

Rock the Vote that have 

programs to register young

voters and engage them in

the political process. Are

these programs effective?

LOPEZ: I think that it is difficult to

measure the success of these groups.

However, they tend to register a lot of

young people for the first time, and

they also tend to register young people

in places where young people are clustered, such as colleges.

I don’t think we have enough

research to tell how effective they are,

but my sense is that they can be.

Q: For those young people

who do vote, what 

influenced them to vote 

and what influences who

they vote for?

LOPEZ: Most of the young people

who vote tend to be college educated,

and they tend to come from families

where the parents discussed politics

with them, and they tend to come

from places which generally had

stronger civic education programs.

Also, young voters are more likely 

to be white or black, and less likely to

be Hispanic. And in recent elections,

ELECTION FOCUS 2004

WWW.USEMBASSY.DE/USA 3

Graph courtesy of the

Center for Information &

Research on Civic Learning

and Engagement from Youth

Voter Turnout has Declined,

by Any Measure, by Peter

Levine and Mark Hugo

Lopez.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the interviewee and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. Government.

(continued on page 5)
It is estimated that the youth vote in

the United States includes 30 million

18-to-30-year-olds throughout the

country. However, despite their large

numbers, young voters accounted for

less than 4 percent of the entire voting

population in the 2000 elections.

Mindful of the untapped potential of

young voters, a number of non-governmental organizations and political

groups are working actively to 

encourage their civic participation. 

Many of these organizations define

themselves as non-partisan, that is, not

belonging to or supporting any political party. Others, however, may

promote a particular political agenda.

Following is a sample of the more

prominent organizations that seek to

mobilize young voters.

http://www.declareyourself.com/

Declare Yourself is a national non-partisan, non-profit campaign to mobilize

young voters to participate in the 2004

presidential election. Declare Yourself

is sponsoring a live spoken word and

music tour of college campuses; a

nationwide voter education initiative

for high school seniors; a comprehensive election information Web site; an

extensive online awareness campaign;

a massive voter registration drive; a 

televised “get out the vote” concert;

and public service announcements. 

http://www.newvotersproject.org/

The New Voters Project is a non-profit,

non-partisan organization dedicated to

increasing voter turnout among citizens

age 18-24 on Election Day 2004. The

Project’s goal is to register more than

265,000 voters on college campuses

and other youth venues. It is concentrating its efforts on six U.S. states —

Colorado, Iowa, Oregon, Wisconsin,

New Mexico, and Nevada — states that

have high concentrations of young voters in small geographic areas.

http://www.crnc.org/default1.asp

The College Republican National

Committee is the nationwide coordinating organization for the Republican

youth movement. With over 120,000

members on 1,148 college campuses,

the Committee works for the election

of Republican candidates and the communication of a conservative message

to college students. 

http://www.yda.org/

The Young Democrats of America 

is the official youth arm of the

Democratic Party and is open to 

anyone under the age of 36 who affiliates themselves with the Democratic

Party. The 43,000 members of the

association include high school students, college students, young workers,

professionals and families.

www.smackdownyourvote.com

Founded in July 2000, Smackdown

Your Vote! is a non-partisan effort to

involve young people in the political

process and to promote youth voter

registration. Smackdown Your Vote! is

a collaboration between World

Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. (formerly the World Wrestling Federation) and

several non-profit, non-partisan organizations that seek to mobalize

18-to-30-year-old voters.

http://www.campaignyoungvoters.org/

Campaign for Young Voters is a nonpartisan, non-profit effort to engage

young voters by working with political

candidates and campaign staff, political party officials, political consultants,

and grassroots organizations on how to

understand, communicate with and

turn out younger voters on Election

Day.

4

Campaign★★Highlight

The Mobilization of Young Voters:

The Role of NGO’s and Other Groups

 

ELECTION FOCUS 2004

 ELECTION FOCUS 2004
WWW.USEMBASSY.DE/USA 5

they’re more likely to be female than

male.

However, there’s a sizeable chunk

of young people who just are not

engaged, and many are non-college

educated. And today, those non-college youth don’t have the paths to

engagement they used to have such 

as labor union membership, which was

a traditional path towards engagement

among non-college youth. 

In contrast, college students are

concentrated in one place, usually on

campus, and these organizations that

we were just talking about go to the

colleges. The non-college youth are

dispersed with no central place to go. 

In terms of influences on those

young people who do vote, we know

that they tend to vote a lot like their

parents. College students will 

generally tend to be more liberal and

non-college students will generally

tend to be more conservative.

Q: The Internet has played

an important role in the 

election thus far. How

important is the Internet in

engaging young voters? 

LOPEZ: We’ve found in our own surveys here at CIRCLE that campaigns

can try to reach out to young people

with different technologies. There are

many more technologies available

today than there were in 2000. The

Internet plays a large part in that. But

we have found that young people

oftentimes are turned off by a lot of

these technologies, some of which

include things like text messaging on

your cell phone or receiving email

updates. 

We found young people were very

turned off, for example, by receiving a

text message from a candidate with an

update on the campaign. They also do

not like Spam mail from candidates.

However, anything that they can opt

into, like receiving weekly e-mail

updates from a candidate, they tend to

like. 

CIRCLE has funded a research

project, which looks at whether or not

sending a non-partisan e-mail to

encourage young people to register, and

encouraging them to vote would actually impact the voter turnout and voter

registration rates of young people in

colleges. A lot of students just threw it

away and didn't even read it. For those

who did read it, it doesn’t appear to

have had any impact on their propensity to vote, or their propensity to register

to vote. So, I think the Internet is a

mixed story. I think it’s another medium, it has a lot of potential, but

candidates have to be careful about

how they use it, because they could end

up turning off potential voters.

Q: Both Republicans and

Democrats are reaching 

out to Latino voters with

Spanish Language campaign

ads and by other methods.

Are the political parties

reaching Latino youth?

MR. LOPEZ: No, Latino youth

are actually, among all youth, more

likely to say things like “Candidates

don’t come to my community, candidates don’t talk to people like me,

candidates would rather talk to wealthier, older voters than me.” They're

more likely to say that than their

young white or black counterparts.

And generally speaking, a large

minority of young people feel like

candidates don't pay attention to them.

Young Latino voters are the ones

who are most likely to feel that the

political candidates don’t pay attention

to their concerns, or to their issues.

So, it’s quite interesting that, yes, the

parties are reaching out to Latinos, but

I think they’re reaching out to the

older Latino voter than the younger

Latino voter. 

READ MORE ABOUT IT:

Center for Information and Research

on Civic Learning and Engagement

(CIRCLE)

CIRCLE promotes research on the

civic and political engagement of

Americans between the ages of 15 and

25. It is based in the University of

Maryland's School of Public Affairs.

http://www.civicyouth.org

ELECTION FOCUS 2004

http://www.youthvote.org/indexcf.cfm

The Youth Vote Coalition is a national,

non-partisan coalition dedicated to

increasing political and civic participation among young people; building an

inclusive, accountable, and responsive

government; and increasing public

awareness about the value of 

participation in democracy through the

electoral process. ■

(continued from page 3)

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the interviewee and do not necessarily reflect the views or policies of the U.S. Government.