We’ve heard the rumors - young people (18-24) were going to vote in record numbers in this election. Already, the boomer talking heads are crowing that those numbers weren’t seen - but what if they just weren’t seen yet?
Where are most educated, politically-motivated 18-24 y.o.'s? Away at college, and voting with absentee ballots that won’t begin to be counted until thursday in most states. I think that we’re going to see a surprise “balloon” of those votes, which will be overwhelmingly for Kerry and could help make the difference in places like Ohio.
In my college town, over half the people voting today (when I was there) were under twenty-three. Most of them cast provisional ballots. I have to assume that a majority (possibly a large majority) of them went to Kerry. It is likely the same with the absentee votes. There are at least a million college-age students who have residence in Ohio, if even twenty percent of them voted absentee that’s a factor of two hundred thousand votes.
Bush is leading in Ohio by well over a hundred thousand votes. Kerry isn’t going to get EVERY absentee ballot. You’re vastly overestimating the potential impact of these ballots.
The election is over, and has been obviously over since yesterday evening.
While I unfortunately agree with you, I’m still holding out hope. To me, it does seem like a long shot. A very long shot. But, as I’m bordering on despondent, this hope is going to keep me going at least for a week or two.
Is there a support group I can join for Ohio voters who feel misrepresented and very much like a fish out of water?
I think college student voters can have a tough time in many states, and I think they end up being a disenfranchised group.
Some states have in place a rule that first-time voters cannot vote absentee. You have to vote in person at least once before you are AV-eligible. Many students, being 18-21, were not eligible to vote in prior elections so they are first-time voters…and thus not eligible to vote absentee.
Then you have the whole permanent-address/school address thing. Can voters vote where they live, even if, say, their driver’s license has a different (permanent) address? Then there is also their transiency. I know many students at my college move every year. Many of them apparently fail to register this change of address with their local clerk. Depending on state laws, this can also make them ineligible to vote.
I think now is the time to call my doctor and get some I-think-I-can-get-through-this-without-hurting-myself pills. I’m not sure there’s a pill that can make me happy anymore.
Preliminary poll numbers seem to show that, while many 18-29 year olds registered to vote, the actual turnout for that age group was no more than in 2000. I would say that hurt Kerry’s chances, but the same polls also indicate that the 18-29 year old vote was split far more than “the experts” expected.
Doctor Jackson: The only number I saw was ‘17%’. It dawned on me later that that wasn’t a turnout percentage, but the percentage of voters who were 18-25. It was 16% last time, so the figure I saw was more indicative of a larger turnout among all groups. What was the turnout percentage within the 18-25 group compared to 2000 and other groups?
Cinnamon Girl: Just don’t try to get the pills from Canada. We can’t seem to make safe drugs here. I know this because when I took a course in pharmaceutical synthesis, one of the lectures was aboot making Zoloft out of maple syrup and bacon that’s not really bacon.
I was wondering about this statement. You said most states–how many are we talking, here? My state counts absentee ballots on the day of the election. How many of the other 49 states count their absentee ballots after the election?