2005 New Voters Project

Unlike 2004 and 2006, where both Census Bureau and exit poll figures abounded to help measure voter turnout, there were no such studies to draw from in 2005. Therefore, the Student PIRGs’ New Voters Project teamed up with the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement to measure the impacts of the Student PIRGs’ voter turnout work in New Jersey and Virginia, which both had relatively high profile gubernatorial races.

The 2005 analysis focused on 13 Virginia precincts and 5 New Jersey precincts with a relatively high concentration of college students that were the focus of non-partisan Get-Out-the-Vote efforts of the Student PIRGs’ New Voters Project. 

The analysis compared each precinct’s 2001 and 2005 voter turnout numbers and found that voter turnout increased by an average of 15.1% among the precincts studied in Virginia and an average of 19.9% in New Jersey. 

Tables detailing the analysis are below.

Table 1: Analysis of Targeted Virginia Precincts

Table 2: Analysis of Targeted New Jersey Precincts

*New Jersey and Virginia turnout data provided by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement’s tabulations and analysis of raw precinct data, November 2005.