Election victory for youth
by Letters to the Editor
Monday, November 10, 2008
By
noon on Nov. 4, you could have asked anyone on the street if they had
voted and around 75 percent would have answered yes. Nearly every
person proudly wore an “I voted” sticker and demonstrated their
enthusiasm for the night to come. When Barack Obama finally was
announced as the president-elect, shouting and screaming could be heard
from every direction. Yes, we can. Yes, we did. We did manage to get
out a huge youth turnout rate. We did change the course of our
country’s future with our voices. Our generation has constantly been
charged with being apathetic towards politics, but on Tuesday we proved
we were anything but.
Students were getting involved left
and right in the Vote Coalition, consisting of the Associated Students
of Madison, India Students Association, United Council, UW Student
Nursing Association, MultiCultural Student Coalition, Progressive
Future and WISPIRG New Voter’s Project. Volunteers of the Vote
Coalition threw themselves into action to get everyone involved in this
historic election. Jolie Lizotte of WISPIRG’s New Voters Project
earlier stated, “Our visibility and accessibility during the
registration period and right before Election Day made it easy for
students to learn exactly what they needed to do in order to vote in
this election. Our enthusiasm and dedication to the cause also helped
increase the excitement around voting. When people see volunteers
standing under umbrellas in the rain registering students to vote, they
know this is something big.” The hard work and determination of the
Vote Coalition paid off as volunteers endured all conditions to give
everyone a chance to have their voice heard. As a result, the seven
members of Vote Coalition registered 9,237 students in person and over
1,300 students online through WISPIRG’s voter registration form at
www.studentvote.org.
As the days winded down to the election,
New Voter’s Project of the Vote Coalition pumped up the atmosphere by
using every last resource to make sure everyone was getting out to
vote. Signs were put up, texts were sent, calls were made. The New
Voter’s Project alone made over 8,900 contacts in person and by phone
during the final last three days before the election and texted over
1,200 people, reminding them about the upcoming election, including a
website where students could find their polling location. Anna Levin of
WISPIRG’s New Voter’s Project sums up what many of the volunteers of
the New Voter’s Project heard on the streets and on the phone from the
various contacts made: “All of the outreach we did throughout the
semester — getting students registered and getting them out to the
polls — was so effective. The majority of students we talked to were
appreciative of all the work we did because we made voting easily
accessible for students.”
Just recently I read an article in
a newspaper speaking of the lower-than-expected youth turnout rate. The
community at large is focusing more on the goals we did not reach
rather than the success we had. In 11 precincts heavily populated with
students, over 22,000 people voted. Such a large number should not be
unaccounted for and brushed aside as if nothing. Just as Barack Obama
mentioned in his victory speech on Tuesday night, our generation is
definitely overcoming the stereotype of apathy that is usually assigned
to young people, something we clearly proved with our turnout during
this historic election.
Elisa Digg (digga2113@gmail.com) is a media intern for WISPIRG’s New Voter Project.
