Will young voters deliver for Kerry? After the Florida debacle of 2000, a variety of efforts target increased Election Day participation by the typically inactive 18-to-29 set BY IAN DONNIS

CRITICS OF THE BUSH administration would call it poetic justice: thirty-two years after 18-year-olds got the right to vote because of the unrest — and draft — associated with the Vietnam War, a surge of young voters, reacting to what they see as Washington’s misguided war in Iraq, help to deliver the presidency for John F. Kerry.

Although this premise could prove little more than a chimera, an array of efforts representing such disparate strands of youth culture as hip-hop (the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network), professional wrestling (the WWE’s Smackdown Your Vote!), and MTV (the 14-year-old Rock the Vote campaign) are targeting increased voting by young adults, citing the collective power that comes with using the ballot. When it comes to more partisan campaigns, the League of Independent Voters (www.indyvoter.org), and Punkvoter (www.punkvoter.com), emphasize how a small number of young voters — particularly because of their traditionally anemic level of voting participation — can make a big difference in the high-stakes election of 2004.

As the introduction at indyvoter.org notes, "The 2000 presidential election was decided by 537 votes [in Florida]. In five other states, the winner was determined by a margin of less than 8000 votes (New Mexico: 366, Iowa: 4144, Wisconsin: 5708, Oregon: 6765, New Hampshire: 7211) . . . [Yet] the rate of voter turnout among young adults is at a historic low. Only 32 percent of 18-24 year olds voted for president in 2000, compared with 42 percent in 1992. The overall failure of national efforts in the past decade to convince young adults to vote highlights the need for bold and creative new strategies that speak directly to young people. It is estimated that there are five million progressives age 17-35 — whose votes would be enough to swing many close elections."

Backed by a small coalition of young political artists and organizers, Indyvoter touts an ambitious plan to leverage voting power into "a massive long-term national progressive constituency." The effort comes complete with a campaign playbook, How To Get Stupid White Men Out of Office: the Anti-Politics, Un-boring Guide to Power (Soft Skull Press, 2004). The current national dominance of the Republican Party notwithstanding, the difficulty of this challenge is evident in Indyvoter’s obscurity beyond a small group of activists. "I don’t know many people who know who the hell what they are," fumes Providence City Councilor David Segal, a 24-year-old Green Party member cited in Stupid White Men as an example of what young, untraditional candidates can accomplish.

Despite the ability of young voters to make political waves, it wouldn’t be much of a surprise if this bloc once again failed to come close to realizing its potential, thereby offering a tacit endorsement of Urban Outfitters’ offer a few months ago of T-shirts with the slogan, "Voting is for old people." Voting participation by young Americans has steadily declined, after all — rising only in 1992, when a slumping economy and the novel third-party candidacy of Ross Perot stimulated interest — since roughly half of eligible young voters cast ballots in the 1972 presidential election.

Darrell West, a political science professor at Brown University, believes it would take nothing less than the reintroduction of the draft to bring about a dramatic increase in voting by young people. "Young people are one of the hardest groups to mobilize in American society," West says. "They’re transient, and they’re very cynical about American politics, and they think that their vote doesn’t matter." Like many observers, West believes that voting turnout will climb this year, but he remain pessimistic about an upsurge in voting by young adults, adding, "For 30 years, young people haven’t been voting, and I don’t really see anything on the horizon that’s going to change that."

There are some indications, however, despite the perceived lethargy of Kerry’s campaign, and the megabucks-fueled confidence of the Bush camp, that an incipient youth movement and a continued stream of bad news out of Iraq could tilt the election in the Democrat’s favor. Although young Americans — roughly defined as those 18 to 29 — were generally supportive of Bush’s Iraq policy last fall, they are now the strongest opponents of the war, says Thomas E. Patterson, a professor at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government and the author of The Vanishing Voter: Public Involvement In an Age of Uncertainty (Alfred A. Knopf, 2002).

Meanwhile, a national survey conducted in April by Harvard’s Vanishing Voter Project found that 42 percent of respondents ages 18-30 are paying "a great deal" or "quite a bit" of attention to the 2004 presidential campaign, compared with 13 percent during the same time in 2000. Although interest is higher among all age groups, Patterson says, younger adults show the greatest interest and are far more involved than they were four years ago. When it comes to voting by young people in 2004, Patterson says, "I think it’s going to be up quite a bit this time, but mainly because of Iraq."

A QUICK, unscientific survey of young people in the Jewelry District, near the Providence campus of Johnson & Wales University, offers the gamut of reactions familiar to academic experts when it comes to voting.

One J&W student, who said he is registered to vote, but will not cast a ballot, reflected the complete and utter alienation of many Americans from civic engagement. Asked if anything that would lead him to vote, the young man, who declined to offer his name, firmly answered in the negative. "I’m not too big on politics. I don’t even know what’s going on," he says. "I got bills to pay. They [politicians] ain’t helping me."

Sandra Junco, a 16-year-old high school student, sounded a similar refrain when asked if she anticipates voting in the future. "It really doesn’t make a difference to me personally," she says. "Whoever’s president, it doesn’t affect us in Providence."

Several J&W students, though, reflecting a disparity in which college-educated Americans are far more likely to vote than those who have not gone to college, indicated their intention to take part in November’s election. Although politics is rarely a topic of conversation with his peers, Vos Vajda, a 19-year-old from Vermont, says he’s leaning toward Kerry, adding, "We all know we’re the next generation, so we’ve got to do something. Dawn Knowles, a 20-year-old Bush supporter from upstate New York, believes that at least half her fellow students will vote. And although Joshua Merkle, a 21-year-old from Pensacola, Florida, initially cited the logistics of being registered in his home state as a possible impediment to voting, he seemingly became more determined as we continued to talk. "I plan to [vote]," he asserts by way of conclusion. "It’s important this time. Bush is messing things up."

If Merkle and his youthful counterparts follow through on such statements, it could make an important difference for Kerry. The mantra of campaigns targeting youth voting, after all, is that politics — rather than being a situation in which votes count for little — is actually a game of inches.

As William Upski Wimsatt, an author, hip-hop activist, and something of an underground cult hero, who is devoting several years of his life to efforts to increase youth voting, writes in the introduction to How To Get Stupid White Men Out of Office, "I know what you’re thinking. We’re fighting an uphill battle in 2004. The Democratic candidates are not all we hoped for. Bush has more money. Bush is a few points ahead in some of the polls. The voting machines are rigged. Most Americans are brainwashed by what they see on TV and . . . um, no.

"In case you don’t remember, [Al] Gore was a shitty candidate too. Gore was outspent too. Gore’s election was rigged too. And still with all of that, he lost by 537 votes.

"The Republicans don’t believe this election is in the bag. They’re tripping over themselves and pulling out all the stops because they know it’s gonna be razor-close again — just like in 2000.

"Let me repeat: in 2000, the presidential election was decided by 537 votes.

"Well, actually it was decided by the partisan 5-4 Supreme Court vote and the Supreme Fraud of Jeb Bush and Katherine Harris. But we won’t get into all that here.

"Still.

"537 votes. Can I make this any clearer? Would you like me to tattoo it across my forehead? What more do I have to say to get you to report immediately to your nearest swing state and start organizing?

"537 VOTES!!!!!!!!

"I sing it in valleys and shout it on mountaintops.

"I whisper it to alligators in the Everglades swamps.

"Because even with all the fraud, even with all the dirty tricks, 538 more votes would have done the trick to block Mr. Bush and Mr. Dick [Cheney]."