Student-voter turnout exceeds national average

National voter initiatives such as MTV’s “Choose or Lose” and Sean “P.Diddy” Combs’ “Citizen Change” targeted the 18- to 29-year-old-age group to increase youth-voter turnout in the 2004 presidential election. The slogan “Vote or Die” became more than just a fashionable T-shirt. It developed into a message that attracted America’s youth to the political world.

With so much emphasis on encouraging the college-age voter population to go to the polls Nov. 2, little change occurred in the overall young-voter turnout.

Although more than 1.4 million new young voters registered for the 2004 election nationwide, only 9 percent of voters were age 18 to 24, according to The Associated Press exit polls conducted Tuesday. When the polls extended into the 18 to 29 age group, the youth vote totaled 17 percent. Both percentages are nearly the same proportion of the electorate in 2000 when President George W. Bush defeated Democrat Al Gore.

The Commonwealth Times conducted its own random poll at 4 p.m. Tuesday to determine how many VCU students between the ages of 17 and 24 would cast their ballots and if the results would parallel the national statistics.

The poll concluded that far more VCU students voted than the AP’s exit polls showed.

In the first 20 students interviewed, 55 percent said they already voted, 35 percent said they would not vote and 10 percent said they planned to vote.

“I believe it’s a right,” said Anna Ailstock, an 18-year-old undeclared student. “A lot of people have sacrificed for that right, and I believe it’s an honor to (use it).”

Some students said they decided to vote simply because they opposed Bush’s presidency.

“I’m an opponent of Bush, I voted against Bush in the last election and I did the same (today),” said Leland Hoth, a 23-year-old political-science major. “I oppose war and military action so I vote against Bush.”

Still, some VCU students failed to go to the polls on Election Day.

Twenty-one-year-old Susan Biasucci, a social work and psychology double major, said she didn’t vote because she didn’t know much about the candidates’ political campaigns.

“I have been too involved in school work, so therefore I have not even paid attention to anything,” she said.

Adam Serafim, a 20-year-old philosophy major, said he didn’t hold similar views with either candidate and decided not to vote.

Despite the insignificant change to young voter turnout in the presidential election, one wish did come true.

According to MTV’s “Choose or Lose” Web site, an estimated 21 million voters age 18 to 30 voted in the 2004 presidential election, allowing the initiative to reach its goal of 20 million young voters participating in the voting process.