Michigan

Those who read our diaries know Project Vote as the organization that fights voter suppression and helps election protection efforts. What you may not know is that in addition to being on the frontlines in the fight for voter rights, Project Vote is also the largest voter registration organization in the United States.

Since 2003 over one-third of all registration applications submitted through voter registration drives in the U.S. have come through Project Vote. In 2003-04 we submitted 1.13 million applications, in 2006 just over 547,000, and by Friday we will collect our 1,000,000th registration for 2007-08. Half of our registrants are under 30, and almost all of them are African-Americans or Latinos. One-third of them have never registered before in their lives.

With one month left in the drive we have 270,000 more registrations to collect and you can help!

Project Vote is proud of our achievements. No voter registration organization in U. S. history has been able to help register over a million low-income people for two presidential election cycles in a row. This success is a testament to our field partners, our state of the art project management system, and the generosity and commitment of our donors.

But our work is not yet finished. Our goal for the 2007-2008 election was 1.27 million voters, so we still have 270,000 more applications to collect in states such as Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. We are now one short month away from the end of our program and we need everyone’s help to finish the job.

In at least five states nationwide Project Vote will help register more voters than made up the margin of victory in the last presidential election: no matter how our registrants choose to vote, these last few votes will matter in a real and powerful way.

Rest assured that in addition to our record-breaking voter registration effort, our Elections Administration program will continue through Election Day to make sure our applicants and similarly situated applicants get on the voter rolls, can vote, and have their vote counted. In fact, we’ve been hard at work fighting voter purges in the South in recent days.

If you would like to reach out to Project Vote, you can contact us at 800-546-8683, 202-546-4173, or via e-mail at researchdirector@projectvote.org

While I was in Nashville, I didn't get a chance to watch the RBC meeting (seemingly streamed live via every broadcast and independent media outlet on the planet). Everyone at the conference was buzzing about it - making phone calls, checking their email and trying to keep up with the latest twist and turn.

Since I missed the whole thing, I'll turn you over to two very capable people who did watch it. First, watch Joe's always interesting take:

Then go read Emptywheel at FireDogLake, who was at the RBC meeting and live blogged the whole event. She has a great recap on exactly what the Michigan delegate compromise means and how it was reached.

So here's a question. If Florida and/or Michigan hold new contests for the Democratic nomination, will those contests take into consideration the special needs and circumstances of young voters?

For instance, if Florida were to send out mail-in ballots as their chosen method for a re-vote, how would those ballots be distributed? Young people move frequently - and many may even move between now and June, when most colleges and universities let out for the summer. As such, address information in the voter file will likely be inaccurate and could result in tens of thousands of students being disenfranchised. Some of those students may not even reside in the state over the summer, but they will have missed their chance to vote in the state where their parents live.

The mobility of young people will also be a problem should the states opt for a caucus process or a new primary with physical polling locations. Thousands or tens of thousands of young people may be away on vacation or living elsewhere for the summer. That could require long drives, hotel stays, or even more expensive plane rides if they wish to exercise their right to vote. That's not acceptable.

The details of these new contests (if they happen at all) are still being worked out, but the campaigns, the DNC, and the state parties should do all in their power to make sure that any solution does not overly burden and disenfranchise younger voters.

CIRCLE has released a fact sheet (pdf) on yesterday's primary in Michigan. Despite the fact that the Democratic primary was virtually uncontested, turnout among 18 - 29 year olds still rivaled that seen by the Republican Party, and as a share of the electorate, young people played a more decisive role in the Democratic Primary than they did in the Republican.

100,776 young voters aged 18 - 29 participated in yesterday's Democratic Primary (choosing "uncontested" over Hillary Clinton, 48% - 43%). They were 17% of the Democratic electorate. Comparatively, 112,833 18 - 29 year olds voted in the Republican Primary, and they were just 13% of the Republican electorate. Republican youth gave Mitt Romney a plurality of their votes, though it was a fairly tight race between the Governor and his top three opponents - John McCain, Mike Huckabee, and dark horse Ron Paul.

Good news for Democrats - even when there's no race we got turnout that is just as good among young voters.

Update: CNN has updated their exit poll and now is putting the race much closer, though Clinton is still losing the youth vote. New stats below.
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Turnout was very low due to a combination of bad weather and the fact that neither Barack Obama nor John Edwards were on the ballot, but it is probably worth noting that "uncommitted" beat out Senator Clinton among both 18 - 24 and 25 - 29 year olds. This is somewhat shocking after Clinton seemed to make headway among the 25 - 29 demographic in New Hampshire, but could very easily be due to the fact that, running unopposed, Clinton didn't campaign nearly as hard in Michigan as she did in the Granite State. Nevada and South Carolina will be the real test for Clinton's redoubled youth outreach efforts.

From the CNN Exit poll:

Young Voters (18 - 29) were 17% of the electorate - the smallest group, but that seems unsurprising considering that this was never a real race like we saw in Iowa and New Hampshire. I'm curious to know whether the lack of election day registration may have played a part as well . . . both Iowa and New Hampshire have election day registration. Michigan does not and the voter rolls closed on December 17th.