Twitterers who vote

There's been much buzz lately about how Sen. Barack Obama's presidential campaign has been able to harness the internet for fundraising and organizing, while Sen. John McCain's campaign has lagged far behind. But of course the zillion dollar question is-will the youthful demographic that is engaged in Obama's campaign turn out at the polls come November?

Two new studies make it sound like maybe, just maybe, yes. And here in Colorado, that could make a difference. According to the Colorado Public Interest Group (CoPIRG), there are 303,000 college students and 637,000 eligible voters under 30 in Colorado. Of course back in 2004, the margin of victory for President George Bush here was fewer than 100,000 votes.

Youth turnout in primaries-those kids who twitter and use Facebook and Myspace and are glued to youtube-increased from nine percent in the 2000 primaries to 17 percent in the 2008 primaries, according to the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement (CIRCLE). Indeed, of the seventeen states in which exit polls were conducted in 2000, sixteen saw increases in young people voting. In some of these states, the turnout tripled or quadrupled.

For example: in New Hampshire the youth turnout rate in 2000 was 28%. This year it was 43%--an increase of 15 percentage points. In Ohio, youth turnout increased from 15% to 25%. In Texas, it went from six percent to 17 percent. And these young voters, when they were Democrats, were hot for Obama: he got 60 percent of the support from young voters. Republican young voters tended to split their votes between McCain and Mike Huckabee. (For the record, my 3.5 year old still insists he wants to vote for Huckabee: he likes the sound of the name.)

Meanwhile, a study released yesterday by the Pew Internet & American Life Project shows that nearly half of Americans use the internet to get political news and share thoughts about the election. There's also been a big increase in the use of social networking sites such as Facebook, particularly for young people: a full 66 percent of internet users under the age of 30 have a social networking profile. Half of these folks use these sites as a way to get political information. And-these young people are going for Obama: "Young voters tilt toward Obama specifically and toward the Democrats generally, and that gives the Democrats some online advantages."

(A hat tip here to the Washington Independent.)

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