"If you want something, you go and make it happen"
July 23, 2012
by Hrishi Deshpande, 17, and Naomi Farahan, 15, Y-Press
CHICAGO, IL—Emma Leff, 16, Chicago, has been involved in the 2012 presidential campaigns almost as long as some of the candidates. With Mikva Challenge, a nonpartisan organization that works to encourage civic involvement among youth, she studied the candidates and issues and went to the Iowa caucuses, where she attended rallies for several candidates and canvassed for Ron Paul. To her, being politically active is in everyone’s best interest. “If you want something, you go and make it happen,” she said. “There are a lot of people who just complain and then sit around and wait for stuff to happen.”
However, she seems to be the exception rather than the norm. According to a Y-Press survey of 400 young people across the country, more than 60 percent said they have never been politically active. The reasons for this varied: While some lacked interest, others believed that their activism wouldn’t make a difference.
Take Clara Fridman, 13, Indianapolis, who abhors politics. She finds the candidates’ rhetoric annoying and believes that the issues being discussed don’t affect her . “It really seems like, especially for this particular election, all that the political candidates ever seem to talk about is how the other party is doing something wrong,” she said.
According to the survey, roughly 22 percent of young people don’t pay attention to campaign ads. About 30 percent said the ads are generally too negative.
But to Clara, campaign news is hard to ignore. “It just bothers me that it’s everywhere,” she said. “Like anywhere you look, on TV, on YouTube, it’s everywhere. It’s flashing in your face and it’s not getting anything done.”
Parsing the data on the youth vote
In 2012, there seem to be fewer young people who are politically engaged than four years ago. According to a recent Harvard survey of 18- to 29-year-olds, President Obama holds a 17-point lead over 
Mitt Romney. However, only 20 percent believe the nation is heading in the right direction, and only 20 percent consider themselves politically active.
Abby Kiesa, youth coordinator and researcher at the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, says it still may be too early to proclaim apathy among young voters. In fact, she says, youth voting has been on the rise. “There have been several election cycles in a row where youth voting has gone up,” she said.
CIRCLE, based at Tufts University near Boston, studies the political and civic participation of youth. It has reported that in 2008, the voting rate of 18- to 29-year-olds was 51 percent. That compares to 49 percent in 2004 and 40 percent in 2000. In addition, Kiesa said, Obama received 66 percent of the youth vote in ’08, which represented a historic low for youth voting for a Republican president.
This could be one of the reasons why young people don’t seem to be as involved this year. According to CIRCLE’s research, the majority of young voters are Democrats, which would account for a lackluster show of support in the Republican primaries. “We have to be careful interpreting that because we don’t necessarily mean that that shows low youth enthusiasm, because it could show low Republican-leaning youth enthusiasm,” Kiesa said.
Negative ads, voter IDs, pre-registration
Clara cited another reason for a lack of enthusiasm this year—the personal attacks between the candidates. She says part of the turn-off for her is that President Obama and Mitt Romney seem to focus more on themselves and each other than on the actual issues at hand. With young people, that may be a mistake.
Contrary to popular belief, young people do not necessarily vote for a candidate because of his or her personality. “In 2008, 69 percent of young people voted for the presidential candidate because of issue positions, not for a personal or character quality,” said Kiesa.
However, she pointed to more likely impediments to youth involvement this year. In particular, she cites new regulations in many states requiring voters to show photo ID, which is particularly problematic for urban youth and youth of color, who are less likely to have driver’s licenses or U.S. passports.
Voter ID laws reflect a stereotypical teenager that isn’t so typical, Kiesa said. “They kind of embed a sort of particular cultural experience: being a suburban person who drives a car when he or she gets to be 16. That isn’t necessarily a fair thing to put into policy because not everyone lives like that.”
In addition, Kiesa said, states that do not allow election-day registration or voter pre-registration may be discouraging a significant number of young voters.
“The pre-registration research shows that young people who register when they’re 16 or 17 are much more likely to vote when they’re 18,” she explained. Despite this research, less than a quarter of states allow pre-registration, according to Rock the Vote, a nationwide nonpartisan voter-registration organization.
Nourishing youth engagement and activism
A quick survey reveals fewer groups seem to be working to get out the youth vote on a national level this year. While some organizations like Rock the Vote launched their big push in May to register youth voters, other groups that were active four years ago, such as Hip-Hop Caucus, are less prominent.
Cuts in civics education also may be affecting youth turnout this year. According to Rock the Vote and CIRCLE, high school students who take strong, participatory civics or government class are more likely to register to vote. “What happens in high school is critical to young people’s participation after they leave high school and into adulthood,” Kiesa said. “A course in government, a course in civics, has an impact on young people’s participation when they’re old enough to vote and later in life.”
And lastly, peers have an effect on youth involvement. “The research on youth voting shows that when a young person has a conversation with another young person [about politics] that’s not formal, that’s kind of conversational, it means that that young person is much more likely to vote,” Kiesa said.
That’s where organizations like Mikva Challenge can play a big part in creating youth activists. Stephen Gordon, 20, joined Mikva as a high school freshman and went with other members to New Hampshire to campaign during that state’s 2008 primaries. “Having the opportunity to meet candidates, to go out to rallies, to be able to experience something like that at a young age was very important to me,” he said. Now a student Florida A&M, Stephen has continued his activism, focusing primarily on education policy.
But while the campaign experience is valuable to Mikva volunteers themselves, it also is to the people to whom they reach out. “I remember being out on the campaign trail and just talking to people and being able to persuade people to go out and vote for the candidate that I believed had the best interest for this country,” Gordon said.
Clara said that ultimately, she will take a greater interest in politics in the future. “I think it’s almost inevitable that you get involved with politics as you get older because it starts affecting you more, and you kind of have to take a stand.”
Gordon, however, believes that the earlier youth get involved, the better. “This is something that will affect you, not now, but in the long run and it will always continue to affect you.”
To get a youth perspective on the 2012 Presidential Elections, WKCD has teamed up with the youth-led news bureau, Y-Press, based in Indianapolis. Originally part of the Children’s Express, Y-Press has nurtured young journalists for more than 20 years. Their stories and articles—on local, national, and global topics—appear every other week in the Indianapolis Star. The Y-Press web site is updated regularly and encourages external submissions and comments about youth-written stories and reviews.
Here, Y-Press reporters will be posting: stories about the campaign, the candidates, and youth perspectives on the political process profiles and interviews with young political activists results from surveys they’ve created to gather information from youth nationwide about the candidates and the issues most important to young people reports from the floor at both of this summer’s national conventions. Check back often to keep up with this special “youth beat” on Election 2012.
