Less than half of eligible young people between the ages of 18 and 24 voted in the most recent national election.

Since the strength of a democracy is measured by the participation of its citizens, particularly the participation of its younger citizens, this trend points to a troubling future for America’s democracy.

Presidential campaign strategies emphasize a focus on voters who will be likely to turnout and vote for that particular candidate. This has been conventional wisdom of campaigns for many years, and each year as youth voter turnout declines, we get less attention.

Because young people don’t vote, campaigns feel they shouldn’t waste resources targeting us. As a result, more and more young people feel disengaged in the very process that drives the engine of our democracy.

Now is a critical time for young people to be involved in our democracy. One great movement happening on campus and across the country is the New Voters Project.

NVP is a non-partisan group dedicated to getting younger citizens involved in the voting process. You may have seen them on campus urging people to pledge to vote in the upcoming election.

Why are they putting forth this effort? Only 50.7 percent of people between the ages of 18 and 24 are registered to vote, and poor information is available to those who are registered.

In the 2000 election, only 36.1 percent of us actually went to the polls.

The New Voters Project hopes to change that dynamic by registering more than 265,000 voters between the ages 18 to 24 across six states in time for the 2004 elections. Consider the impact of a strong voter turnout:

Candidates target their message to people who vote — and because general-election voters have an average age of 50, Medicare and Social Security are hotter topics on the campaign trail than college tuition.

We care about lots of issues — the environment, the scarcity of good jobs and how hard it is to get health insurance, for starters. However, politics can be irrelevant to us when politicians hardly know our age group exists.

If we vote in larger numbers, politicians will listen to what we have to say.

Recent polling shows that young voters are up for grabs in the upcoming election. With 23.9 million citizens aged 18 to 24 across the nation, young people represent a significant voting bloc.

Because of the polarization of our nation’s electoral system, the two major parties are each battling over a handful of swing voters.

Voter turnout and the discovery of new voters have become more critical than ever.

With so many elections now decided by only a few hundred votes, bringing these new voters to the polls will mean young voters can play a significant role in the 2004 elections.

Iowa is a critical state in the presidential elections because of an early primary and a perennially swinging voting block, and it is a great place to register young people and get them out to the polls.

There are more than 300,000 people between the ages of 18 and 24 in Iowa. Since many of these young people live and go to colleges and universities around the state, it is great to see Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, Greens and other campus and community organizations working with the efforts like the New Voters Project to focus their energy at universities and colleges around the state.

In Iowa alone, we will register 50,000 18 to 24-year olds this year, with 8,000 of them at Iowa State.

Young people — this is what democracy looks like.

Jeremy Putman

ISU Democrats

Jennifer Jaudon

ISU College Republicans

Jeremy Oehlert

Iowa State Libertarians