For Immediate Release: March 5, 2008

Contact: Sujatha Jahagirdar (323) 309 6120

Youth Vote Nearly Triples in Texas, Nearly Doubles in Ohio

Rising Young Voter Turnout Trend Remains a Constant in Tumultuous Primary

Young voter turnout continued its dramatic rise in last night’s primaries.  According to an analysis performed by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, young voter turnout tripled in Texas and nearly doubled in Ohio.

"In an unpredictable primary season, the one constant has remained the rising youth vote," said Student PIRGs’ New Voters Project Program Director Sujatha Jahagirdar.

This rising young voter trend continued dramatic increase seen in the first presidential contests of the year.  The surge also reflects the increased engagement of young people in the political process seen by on-the ground organizers since 2004.

Source: CIRCLE

Youth organizers and student leaders with the Student PIRGs’ New Voters Project have worked extensively to boost youth turnout rates in primary states across the country.

Pairing old fashioned pavement-pounding with technology to link up with the increasingly wired world of the young voter, the project has employed a myriad of tactics to mobilize the youth vote.  From ‘bring your own phone’ phone banks to classroom ‘text out the vote’ announcements to tables set up on campus quads, student leaders recruited and trained by the project have engaged young voters in more than 20 states this primary season.

# # #

The Student PIRGs are independent state-based student organizations that work to solve public interest problems related to the environment, consumer protection, and government reform.

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 with our allies, youth voter turnout increased on average by 157%.