November 03, 2004
The hoodies stayed home?
by Liza Sabater
2004 not the breakout year for youth vote after all
This was not the breakout year for young voters that some had anticipated.
Fewer than one in 10 voters Tuesday were 18 to 24, about the same proportion of the electorate as in 2000, exit polls indicated. Still, with voter turnout expected to be higher overall, more young people appeared to have come out.
Here's one quick thought about this : I live in an apartment complex that houses hundreds of NYU students. NYU started bulk-leasing apartments in this place about 2 years ago. Since then, more than a frat dorm, the place feels like a youth hostel : No sooner than a student moves in that, a few months later, they move out. Very few of them have made these aparments their residences.
Today we went out asking people if they had already voted. Two 18 year-old kids from the Dominican Republic who are going to school here told us they can't vote in the city because they have no citizenship --even though they will not be going back to the RD anytime soon.
A few of the college kids living in our apartment building told us the had trouble getting their absentee ballots out. There was a lot of confusion on whether they were to vote here or at their homes.
This is a huge issue for me. When I came from Puerto Rico to study at NYU, I still voted in Puerto Rico for a few years even if it was clear that I was not going back. But part of my attachment to the Puerto Rican vote had to do with the fact that, due to my Pell Grant and GSLs, I was not considered a resident of this town. Since I was still considered a dependent of my mother, I was not allowed to vote --AND YET, I was working in NYC and paying taxes to both the state and city.
These two encounters make me feel there has to be a more aggresive effort on not only the registration and certification of absentee ballots. We also need to have a fiercer push for allowing long-term tax-paying, school-attending, resident immigrants to vote.
Posted by Liza Sabater in 2004 Elections, Civil Rights, Education, Latino
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