Dems Hope Youth Barack The Vote

WILL NEW DVD OR HOT DATE DERAIL YOUTH AT THE POLLS?

election"08: the race to clean the place
4 days to go

An exhaustive analysis of Florida's first 1.4 million ballot by the Orlando Sentinel might indicate the political admonition to never trust young voters to actually cast a ballot may effect this election.

The Sentinel reports voters 35 and under who swelled registration to a quarter of the electorate have only accounted for 15 percent of early voting ballots.

The story quotes quite flippantly a political science professor from the University of South Florida saying, "It could be that college students will do like they do everything else: cramming for a test, or whatever, and procrastinate."

An article at Gallup.com reports the polling company is seeing little change in the youth vote from four years ago.

Moreover, the story points out that like 2004, when the youth vote was characterized as emboldened to vote disproportionately than the past and attention was high, ballots cast fell short of an increased over 2000.

The poll also shows one in three newly registered young voters have been contacted in some form by the Obama campaign, the candidate most likely to benefit from voters 35 and under.

Study after study show that despite the campaign rhetoric that the youth of America are taking the country by the reign, the demographic can be easily lulled into complacency and flakiness.

A more rosy picture of the youth vote rising to the occasion appears here at realclearpolitics.com

It is likely that young voters will again vote within the same proportions as past elections, the difference, though, may lie in the sheer numbers of newly registered young people by the Obama campaign through which more ballots will be cast.