Locally and nationally, student voter turnout falls in Tuesday’s election

Tuesday’s midterm election yielded not only a decline in the number of Democratic seats in both the United States Senate and House of Representatives, but also a decrease in the percentage of youth voter turnout in comparison to both the last presidential election and the 2006 midterm election.

According to statistics released by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, approximately 20 percent of U.S. citizens under the age of 30 voted on Tuesday, down from nearly 55 percent in the presidential election in 2008 and 23 percent in the 2006 midterm election.

Locally, voters in 14 student-heavy districts in Ann Arbor also turned out in much lower numbers than the 2008 presidential election. Only 21 percent of voters in the student-heavy districts turned out in 2010 — representing 5,661 voters of the 26,598 that were registered. In 2008, 45 percent of voters turned out — 15,483 voters of the 34,255 that were registered.

Communication Studies and Political Science Prof. Michael Traugott said the low voter participation from America’s youth was not “unexpected,” saying a low voter turnout among youth has happened in almost every midterm election since the 1930’s.

Traugott said a major reason for the lower percentage of youth voters is the lack of permanent residency among young voters who are often attending universities or beginning careers in new locations.

“A lot of midterm elections focus on local issues and young people are often in a transitional stage in their life,” Traugott said. “So their involvement and engagement with local issues is less and therefore they don’t see or attach as much significance to participation in these local elections as they do in a presidential campaign.”

Traugott also called voting “an acquired habit” and said many young people are still developing political activism skills and learning the importance of voting in local and national elections.

He said that decline in youth voting paired with large numbers of older voters who supported Republican candidates due to troubles in the economy, led to the shift in power seen in this election.

“It’s not surprising to see the incumbent party lose seats in the midterm election, especially with the economy when the conditions are bad,” Traugott said. “The Democrats have had unusually large majorities, so I think it was reasonable to expect they would take unusually large losses.”

Political Science Prof. Vincent Hutchings echoed Traugott’s sentiment, saying that because the economy has been such a prominent issue in the political conversation both locally and nationally since President Barack Obama took office in 2008, voters were hoping that a change in party power may lead to increased solutions.

“Clearly, the most salient issue for most voters — and one doesn’t need the exit polls to see this — would be the economy,” Hutchings said. “I think the concern with the economy didn’t work to the Democrats’ advantage, because they’re the party in power and there’s a widespread perception that the economy’s doing very poorly. That’s never going to work for the incumbent party. “

Hutchings said that a growth in Republican seats in the Senate and the House doesn’t necessarily mean that Obama will struggle with maintaining his presidency in the 2012 election.

He added that Obama’s presidency may mirror Ronald Reagan’s in the fact that Reagan faced similar economic difficulties during his time in office, but because of eventual economic growth throughout his term in office, was able to salvage his presidency after the Republicans lost many seats in the midterm results of 1982.

“(Reagan) went on to win in 1984 because the economy had turned around,” Hutchings said. “If that were to happen, the incumbent president in this case — Barack Obama —would have a pretty good chance of winning actually.”

Brendan Campbell, chair of the University’s chapter of College Democrats, said he was disappointed that the student voting percentage was so low and attributed the loss of Democratic seats, at least in part, to the decline in youth voting.

“I think it’s pretty clear that when students come out to vote, we elect people who put policies in place that exist for students and we elect Democrats,” Campbell said. “When we don’t come out and vote, when we stay at home on Election Day, we end up electing people who really plan on cutting education funding.”

Campbell said that instead of focusing on the implications of Tuesday’s election may have on Obama’s presidency and the 2012 election, Democrats across the nation are looking to unite and continue moving onward.

“I know Democrats right now aren’t focused about what’s going to happen in 2012. Right now, we’re just looking towards working together and making sure that we continue to work to move this country forward,” he said.

Charles Bogren, chair of the University’s chapter of College Republicans, said he too was disappointed with the low voter turnout among young people. Bogren said he thinks political “apathy” is why students failed to turn out at the polls.

However, Bogren disagreed with Campbell by saying the shift towards electing more Republicans was due to Democrats, who voted for Obama in 2008, crossing over and voting Republican in Tuesday’s election.

“I think a lot of the people who increased voter turnout in 2008 are people who went out and voted for Obama and then became disenfranchised with the whole administration in the past two years and decided to just sit on their hands and not go out and vote,” Bogren said.

Yonah Lieberman, a member of Voice Your Vote — the nonpartisan Michigan Student Assembly organization that strives to improve election participation — said he thinks students often don’t turn out to the polls because they don’t believe they play an important role in the political process.

“I think students don’t really understand the privilege of the vote because they think they have more important things to do,” Lieberman said. “And going to class is important and doing your work is important, but the voting takes 15 minutes.”

Lieberman said he thinks tests and exams given by professors on Election Day keep students from going to the polls, and is something that should be banned so that students have more time to focus on election related issues.

“An election is more important than a test,” Lieberman said.

LSA sophomore Erin Breed said she thinks students don’t vote in midterm elections because they don’t realize how policies decided in local elections affect them.

“People don’t realize that the elections actually affect them and the people around them,” Breed said. “They think that our rights and laws were magically put in place, they don’t have anything to do about it.”

LSA freshman Caitlin Morath said she tried to register to vote based on her permanent address, but her application wasn’t approved in time to vote on Tuesday.

Despite this, Morath said even if she could vote, she didn’t feel knowledgeable enough about the candidates or know what Ann Arbor needs most since she’s new to the area.

“For me I feel like during the midterm, I don’t know what’s best for Michigan at this point,” Moreth said. “I don’t know how long I will stay here and what this will mean for my future.”

LSA junior Sida Chen also said his lack of knowledge of the candidates was the reason he didn’t vote.

“I didn’t really pay enough attention to all the candidates so I wouldn’t have made an informed vote,” Chen said.

— Daily News Editor Eshwar Thirunavukkarasu contributed to this report.