 "Photo: Benjamin Zitney")
Without the overwhelming support from American voters ages 18 to 29, Sen. Barack Obama would have likely lost his bid for presidency, according to the director of the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE).
According to national exit polls, younger voters supported Obama over Sen. John McCain by a ratio of 2-to-1 — a proportion Peter Levine, the director of CIRCLE, called “pretty extraordinary.”
Of the projected 21.6 million to 23.9 million youth voters, 66 percent voted for Obama, while 32 percent cast votes for McCain, according to CIRCLE.
Levine compared this display of enthusiasm for a presidential candidate to that shown toward Ronald Reagan in the 1984 election. He said it will be interesting to see if these young voters align themselves with the Democratic Party for life, as many did with the Republican Party after 1984.
Data from other demographics contrasted sharply with the youth vote.
Based on exit polls, votes from citizens ages 45 to 64 showed a virtual tie between the two candidates. When looking at votes of citizens ages 65 and over, Obama “loses fairly substantially,” Levine said.
As with the 2004 election, Tuesday’s results show a continued rise in the numbers of younger American citizens heading to the polls.
While only able to give a broad range for percentage of youth voter turnout, CIRCLE reports that between 49.3 percent and 54.5 percent of eligible voters ages 18 to 29 voted.
At its lowest, this estimate shows a 1 percent increase from the 2004 election, when 48 percent of eligible voters ages 18 to 29 showed up at the polls. At its highest, it shows the largest percentage of youth voter turnout since the 1972 election, when the voting age was officially lowered to 18.
Levine says CIRCLE will have more specific numbers once the several-million-more absentee and provisional ballots are counted.
Turnout on campus exceeded poll workers’ expectations, with 1,250 total ballots collected, according to Andrew Kress, Associated Students, Inc. secretary for system-wide affairs. About 60 percent of these ballots were provisional.
“I felt it was very accessible for students to vote,” said Hector Torres, a sophomore microbiology major of the on-campus polling place. “I found it very convenient.”
“I voted on campus as a provisional voter,” said Curtis Ida, a freshman graphic design major. “It was about a 20-minute wait.”
At one point, the on-campus polling place ran out of regular ballots and resorted to using emergency/demonstration ballots for about an hour until extra regular ballots were delivered, Kress said.
“These ballots looked different than the regular ones but they functioned the same way and were counted in the same manner,” Kress said in an e-mail.
The L.A. County Registrar’s office said a little over 82 percent of voters registered in L.A. County submitted ballots this election. This number was reported Wednesday, with 30 percent of precincts reporting.
