For immediate release: January 8, 2007

For more information contact:
Sujatha Jahagirdar (323) 309 6120
Ellynne Bannon (202) 458 7635

Youth Organizers Gear Up to Ensure Continued Increase in Youth Vote Turnout

As thousands of young New Hampshire voters head to the polls today, youth organizers across the country are gearing up to ensure that 2004 trends in young voter turnout continue through the remainder of the election season.

“The youth surge in Iowa last week showed that on-the-ground organizing works,” said Ellynne Bannon, Director of the Student PIRGs New Voters Project. “This coming election we will invade classrooms, storm dorms and stop young people on the way to class to make sure that recent increases in the youth vote continue.”

Youth organizers point to unprecedented youth turnout in Iowa and 2004 youth vote surges in key states as reasons for optimism.  Lynchpin states such as California, Ohio, and New Mexico posted significant youth vote increases in the last presidential election.  Organizers attribute this increase in large part to concentrated on-the-ground efforts such as the Student PIRGs’ New Voters Project, which mobilized the nation’s largest non-partisan youth one-on-one voter registration and get-out-the vote effort.  Iowa PIRG’s Rock the Caucus campaign utilized these on the ground efforts during the Iowa caucuses to identify and train hundreds of student leaders to mobilize their peers to turn out on caucus day.

State / Increase in Youth Turnout (2000 to 2004)*

California                       8%
Nevada                         13%
South Carolina               6%
Florida                          10%
Michigan                       17%
New York                      12%
New Mexico                  17%
Colorado                       18%
Ohio                             18%
Pennsylvania                 12%

With the possibility of a protected primary campaign season that will reach into more than two-dozen states, young voters could replicate the significant role they played in Iowa throughout the election season.  More than 16 million young voters live in the key states listed above.  Nationwide, young voters will make up nearly a quarter of the electorate in 2008.

In the coming months, the Student PIRGs’ New Voters Project will continue employ two primary strategies to ensure youth vote gains continue.  Through our What’s Your Plan? Campaign we will continue to urge the candidates to engage young people on the issues they care about – like college affordability and global warming.  Already, hundreds of volunteers have appeared at fundraisers, town halls and photo-ops across the country and asked the candidates What’s Your Plan? on issues important to youth – more than 100 times.

In addition, Student PIRG campus chapters across the country will organize on-the-ground youth voter registration efforts and get-out-the vote efforts in primary states across the country.  At the Los Angeles Community Colleges, for example, youth vote organizers aim to establish xxxx personal get-out-the-vote contacts to ensure increased student turnout.   Through next November, organizers will train thousands of student leaders on campuses from Colorado to New Mexico; from Ohio to Florida to organize intensive one-on-one, face-to-face voter registration and get-out-the-vote drives to mobilize the youth vote.

“Turning out the youth vote is no mystery,” concluded Bannon.  “When young people are asked to vote by politicians and their peers, the will show up on Election Day.”

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*The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement, Quick Facts About Young Voters Series, available at www.civicyouth.org/PopUps/FactSheets/FS_FastFacts2006

New Hampshire Public Interest Research Group’s (NHPIRG) mission is to deliver persistent, result-oriented public interest activism that protects consumers, encourages a fair, sustainable economy, and fosters responsive, democratic government.

The Student PIRGs’ New Voters Project is the nation’s largest youth voter mobilization program.  Since 2004, we have registered more than 600,000 young people and made more than 650,000 peer to peer voter turnout contacts to get young people to the polls on Election Day. Due in large part to our efforts, the youth vote increased by 4.3 million votes, or 9% in 2004 and an analysis of our work in 2006 found that in the student dense precincts in which we worked, the youth vote increased on average by 157%.