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Consider the vote rocked
By AprillBrandon in Pop Goes the Culture
November 6, 2008

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Even before I was old enough to vote, I remember being constantly bombarded with messages of "Rock the Vote," "Vote or Die" and "Insert other-catchy-voting-phrase here." All of them were aimed at Gen X and Gen Y to encourage us to get off our duffs and uh, well, vote.

And I don't know whether the slogans finally paid off or it was just the historic election or even a combination of the two, but us young'uns did finally rock the vote. We came out in droves to vote, more so than ever before.

According to MSNBC, an estimated 22 to 24 million young people voted in this election, an increase by at least 2.2 million over 2004. The article also states that these young voters may have proved to be the key to Obama's victory, preferring him over John McCain by 68 to 30 percent. That's the highest share of youth vote obtained by any presidential candidate since they began tracking such things in 1976.

And since 2000, young voters have been coming out more and more. In 2004, 20 million 18- to 29-year-olds voted (a 4.3 million increase from 2000), according to the U.S. Census Bureau. In this year’s primary elections, at least 50 percent more young people voted than they did in the 2004 and in some states, youth voter turnout doubled and in some cases tripled.

Whatever prompted us slacker 20-somethings to get out of our bean bag chairs, put down the pizza and the remote and get out and actually vote, I hope this momentum continues. I'm a firm believer that if you didn't vote, you can't complain. So it's good to see my peers finally taking a vested interest in politics and in their future.

And now maybe Sean Diddle Puff Doodle will give it a rest with those in your face commercials and T-shirts.