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 ([email protected]) is a media intern for WISPIRG’s New Voter Project.