Youth voter turnout for the California recall election on Oct. 7
barely increased over turnout for last year’s gubernatorial
election, but still remained lower than numbers set in the 2000
presidential election, according to two different exit polls.
Voters between the ages of 18 and 24 comprised about 7 percent
of the total voter turnout on Oct. 7, according to an exit poll
conducted by Edison Media Research and Mitofski International. The
poll also found youth voters between the ages of 18 and 29 made up
13 percent of the state’s voting population.
A Los Angeles Times exit poll found that 12 percent of
California voters were between the ages of 18 and 29, which was
consistent with Edison and Mitofski’s poll. A Times exit poll
conducted in 2002 found that youth voters comprised 11 percent of
state voter turnout.
Youth voters between the ages of 18 and 24 followed the voting
trends of the majority of California voters, said Joe Lenski,
executive vice president of Edison Media Research. The majority of
them favored recalling Gov. Gray Davis and 46 percent voted for
Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger.
However, youth voters did favor Green Party candidate Peter
Camejo slightly more than the rest of the state, with 9 percent of
the youth vote. Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, the only viable
Democratic contender on the recall ballot, did slightly worse with
youth than he did with the rest of the state, garnering 28 percent
of the youth vote.
Although some analysts had suggested there might be a spike in
youth turnout for the recall because of celebrity candidacies like
that of Schwarzenegger, this proved not to be the case, said Henry
Brady, a political science professor at the University of
California, Berkeley.
Brady said youth tend not to be deeply invested in the political
system the same way older people are. He also said increased
turnout for the recall could largely be attributed to voter anger
at Davis, a sentiment not shared by youth.
“A lot of people turned out because they were mad as
hell,” he said. “I don’t think a lot of youth
were as mad as hell.”
Lenski said another reason youth voters did not come out in
greatly increased numbers may have been because California does not
have same-day voter registration. Last year voters defeated an
initiative ““ Proposition 52 ““ that would have allowed
citizens to register and vote on election day.
When former Gov. Jesse Ventura ran for election in Minnesota, a
state that does have same-day voter registration, Lenski said
Edison Media Research recorded a spike in youth voter turnout as
young people went to the polls to register and vote for the former
celebrity wrestler.
But with California’s voting registration deadline 15 days
before the election, Lenski said not all interested voters may have
registered in time.
“If you hadn’t been excited three or four weeks
before the election in time to remember to register, it
doesn’t matter how excited you are on election day, you
can’t vote,” Lenski said.
Ara Khachatourian, a campaign director for Rock the Vote, a
nonpartisan organization geared toward increasing youth voting,
agreed that the state’s lack of same-day registration could
have played a role in the minute increase in youth turnout.
“Any election that is easily accessible to the voter makes
it more beneficial in terms of voter turnout,” he said.
College-aged voters who may have just started school by Oct. 7
may not have remembered to re-register in their district or not
known where to have their absentee ballots sent, Brady added,
further decreasing the pool of voting youth.
Khachatourian said Rock the Vote had recorded an increase in
political interest among youth voters, and he blamed voter
unfamiliarity with the elections process for the small increase in
turnout.