Archive for November, 2008

So after Tuesday’s election I thought we’d be able to rest.  At least a little.  But no.  There was more work to do!

We learned our Governor was proposing to cut $2.5 billion from K-12, Community Colleges, CSUs and UCs!!!

So we rallied our friends and protested at the Capitol in conjunction with Lt.Governor John Garamendi who held a press conference to talk about the consequences of the Governor’s proposal.

Here’s the coverage on KCRA 3: http://www.kcra.com/video/17935477/index.html

and on CBS 13: http://cbs13.com/local/CBS.Asks.Whats.2.859387.html

Some facts to consider:

The future success of the state of California depends on investing in the education of the youngest Californians (who can’t vote yet!).

For every one dollar California invests in students to get a degree, the state ends up getting three dollars in return.

Please join student leaders from all branches of our education system Friday, November 7th at 11am for a protest at the Capitol followed by a press conference with our Lt. Governor John Garamendi, plus labor, education and healthcare leaders.

K-12 and 6 million students
$244.3 million cut in COLA
$1.79 billion cut in schools
$97 million cut in child care
$71.2 million cut in “underutilized” programs

CCC and 2.5 million students
$39.8 million cut in COLA
$294.4 million cut in general

CSU and 400,000 students
$66.3 million cut in general

UC and 200,000 students
$65.5 million cut in general
$402,000 cut in Hastings School of Law

California has the most rigorous academic standards in the country, yet our K-12 funding is below the national average. California ranks 43rd in the nation in K-12 funding — most of the country allocates 30 percent more on K-12 per pupil funding than does California. California has the largest class sizes in the country.

Education Week reported that California spends $1,900 less per student than the national average.

California has 30 percent fewer teachers and 60 percent fewer principals than the average American school. Other studies show that we have some of the most overcrowded classrooms as well as the greatest shortage of librarians, counselors and other critical support staff in the nation.

In the last two years alone, California has dropped from 43rd to 46th in per-pupil spending, which is nearly $2,000 below the national average. States like New York spend 75 percent more per student than California.

In order to keep California’s competitive edge over the next 20 years, almost 40 percent of the workforce will need to be college educated.

California Young Democrats Press Release
For Immediate Release: Thursday, November 6, 2008
Press Contact: Claire Conlon

SACRAMENTO – The California Young Democrats’ Young Voter Revolution campaigns helped swing elections all over the state.  Thousands of Young Democrats mobilized their peers by registering them to vote and then by following up to make sure they turned out and voted up and down the ticket for Democrats and for progressive ballot propositions.  Young people may not have been able to offer money to campaigns, but they gave up something far more valuable, their time and commitment.  California voters under age 30 favored Obama by 56 points, 77% Obama-21% McCain; voted to defeat Proposition 4 by 24 points, 38% Yes-62% No; and voted to defeat Proposition 8 by 26 points, 37% Yes-63% No.

“California and the entire nation witnessed what happens when young voters are empowered to transform our future,” said Rocky Fernandez, President of the California Young Democrats.  “With our quality of life on the line, we brought each other to the polls and stood up for a stronger economy, better education and health care, and a cleaner environment while rejecting discrimination and divisiveness.  As President-elect Obama said, young people “rejected the myth of their generations apathy.” Last night the world saw what the California young democrats have been saying for years: “we are the margin of victory.”

On and before Election Day, the California Young Democrats mobilized young voters across the state through street teams, emails, text messages, and Facebook messages, as well as our peer to peer canvasses and phone banks.

“An estimated 24 million Americans ages 18 to 29 voted in this election, an increase in youth turnout by at least 2.2 million over 2004, reports CIRCLE, a non-partisan organization that promotes research on the political engagement of young Americans. That puts youth turnout somewhere between 49.3 and 54.5 percent, meaning 19 percent more young people voted this year than in 2004, estimates John Della Volpe, the director of polling for the Harvard Institute of Politics.”–MSNBC

“After eight years of the Bush economy of lost jobs and declining investment in college education, we proved the pundits wrong by turning out in force on Election day,” said Nick Warshaw, President of the California College Democrats.  “With over 40,000 students and young workers registered by member clubs of the California College Democrats, young people turned out in force for Barack Obama and for our rights here in California by voting against Proposition 4 and 8.”

This election has transformed college campuses into hotbeds of reflection and action. Now, students are the individuals raising the questions and pushing for action. Issues such as sustainability, affordability, and equal rights have sparked student action and have become highly visible upon campuses where students work to first to educate their peers and then their communities.

The California Young Democrats are using the energy and momentum of this election to strengthen our chapters statewide so we can turn out in force for the 2010 Governor’s race.  At the start of the primary season CYD had 65 Chapters and now has over 200 Chapters and many of those are in areas where we’ve never had any infrastructure such as San Joaquin County and Imperial County.  We will spend 2009 providing leadership and campaign trainings to our membership and developing a best practices campaign in-a-box for our Chapters.

Go to www.youngvoterrevolution.com to read blog posts from organizers, check out photos from events, and review resources like our campaign toolkit, Election Protection guide, and online vote pledge.

California Young Democrats
For Immediate Release: Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Press Contact: Claire Conlon

Contact Claire to arrange interviews with young Democratic leaders.  We will arrange interviews based on requests for young voters/leaders from specific geographic areas and even gender and background categories.  We now have over 200 Chapters statewide and our membership truly represents the diversity of our great state.

SACRAMENTO – The expectations for the youth vote are once again high, but the Nay-Sayers are already at it.  Senator McCain’s political director, Mike Duhaime, recently told reporters that he does not believe the data shows that young people are changing the electorate.  Well, the California Young Democrats will prove him and all the other Nay-Sayers wrong.

Michael Connery at FutureMajority.com has created helpful a “cheat sheet” to correct common misperceptions about the youth vote, and help journalist accurately report on young voter turnout. It was pretty well received and even got picked up for an anthology about new media. Judging from some of the reporting we’ve seen this year, we thought we’d share this useful information:

1. When reporting on youth participation, do not confuse “share of the electorate” with “turnout.” Share of the electorate is a measure of the proportion of young voters who cast a ballot in relation to all other voters. Turnout is the percentage of all eligible young voters who cast a ballot. Share measures the influence of young voters within the electorate as a whole. Turnout tells us whether or not more young people showed up at the polls. Please do not confuse them.

2. It is possible for turnout to rise, while share of the electorate remains steady. Indeed, this is exactly what happened in 2004. Young voter turnout (18 - 29) increased by 9 percentage points from 40 to 49% (an increase of about 4.3 million votes). However, young voter’s share of the electorate remained steady at 17%.

3. Young voters can only be held accountable for their own actions, not those of the entire electorate. If the youth vote’s share of the electorate holds steady from 2004 to 2008, that will mean that older voters also went to the polls in higher numbers. Young voters cannot be held accountable for that. As such, turnout and the hard number of votes are the only accurate measure to gauge the success of efforts to get out young voters.

4. Rising youth turnout is a trend, not a fad tied to the popularity of Senator Obama. Contrary to conventional wisdom, or media reports from 2004, Obama’s campaign is not solely responsible for higher youth turnout, though it has played a crucial role during this election cycle. Youth turnout began to rise in 2004, when youth it jumped by 9 percentage points, from 40 to 49%, and 4.3 million more young voters cast a ballot than in 2000. This trend continued in 2006, which saw the first increase in young voter turnout during a midterm election since the 1980s. It reached a new height in early 2008 when youth turnout in the primaries was double that from 2000, the last comparable year. In some states, youth turnout in the primaries was triple or quadruple that of previous years.

5. The margin of victory among young voters may be just as important as the overall increase in youth turnout. In 2004, 20 million young voters cast a ballot, with 54% selecting John Kerry. That gave Kerry an advantage of 1.6 million votes over President Bush among young voters. This year, if 22 million young voters cast ballots and 62% choosing Obama vs. 38% for McCain (numbers roughly found in most polling), that would give Senator Obama an advantage of 5.28 million votes.

6. Youth turnout is about access, not apathy. When young people are registered to vote - they turn out. According to the US Census, 81.6% of all registered young voters actually cast a ballot in 2004. That is on par with other portions of electorate. The more campaigns and independent organizations work to register young voters, and the easier we make the registration process, the higher youth turnout will be.

7. Regardless of youth turnout on Tuesday, young voters have already played a crucial and decisive role in this contest. In the Iowa Democratic caucuses, young voter turnout tripled and their share of caucus-goers was equal to that of the “reliable” 65+ demographic. Obama won the support of 60% of Iowa’s youth, catapulting him to the front of the Democratic pack. Similar levels of support from youth in the following primaries and caucuses were the foundation of Obama’s primary success.

The 2008 Youth Vote: What To Expect When Expecting

In 2004, youth turnout was wildly misreported - in the media and in the blogosphere. That reporting was summed up most aptly by this famous quip from the late Hunter S. Thompson:

“Yeah, we rocked the vote all right,” quips Hunter S. Thompson, the gonzo journalist himself. “Those little bastards betrayed us again.”

Of course Thompson, and the media reports, were wrong. The youth vote did turnout and was the only age demographic to vote for Kerry over Bush.

This year, expectations for the youth vote are higher than ever - perhaps unrealistically so - and the expectations game is already beginning to result in “youth don’t vote” stories in local and regional media. For instance, in Florida, the Orlando Sentinel had this to say:

Young people are turning out in disproportionately low numbers. Though major registration efforts this year boosted their totals to nearly 25 percent of the total electorate, voters younger than 35 represent only 15 percent of early voters, making them the worst-performing demographic group in the analysis.

This is incredibly misleading. Here’s what the Young Democrats of Florida found when they ran the numbers on early voting in Florida:

According to the Florida voter file, (which should be viewed as relatively but not 100% accurate) in 2004, approximately 392,888 voters between 18-35 voted early or absentee. So far 499,867 voters between 18-35 have voted early or absentee this year. This is a 27 percent increase over 2004.

What happened was a common mistake in which the media used misleading, and not terribly informative, “share of the electorate” data to describe youth turnout instead of more accurate figures like the hard number of votes or % turnout of eligible voters. Unfortunately, such mistakes are all too common in reporting on youth turnout.

The following is a hard-nosed look at what we might realistically expect on Tuesday, a list of common mistakes the media makes when reporting on youth, and some tips to help activists, journalists, and bloggers alike accurately assess youth participation on Election Night.

What to Expect When Expecting on Election Day:

Youth Turnout Will Likely Be Higher Than in 2004:
There are three measures of youth participation:
•    Total Number of Votes: That’s pretty self explanatory.
•    The Turnout Rate: This is the percentage of all eligible young voters who cast a ballot.
•    The Share of the Electorate: The percentage of the entire voting electorate between the ages of 18 and 29.

This year, the hard number of ballots cast by young voters and the turnout rate are both highly likely increase. Let’s keep that in perspective, though. Youth turnout is not likely to climb into the 60 or 70% range. The highest youth turnout ever was 55%, recorded in 1972. I would be extremely happy to see us match that number this year. Who knows, maybe we’ll be surprised and it will be higher, but we shouldn’t go into Tuesday expecting that it will be higher.

Even if youth turnout rises significantly, there is no guarantee that the youth share of the electorate will show a comparable increase.

This was the big problem in 2004: youth turnout rose significantly, but, because older portions of the electorate also increased their turnout rate, the youth share of the electorate held steady at 17%. It is highly possible that increased turnout among African Americans and other groups, or even decreased participation among depressed (young) McCain supporters, could prevent young voters from increasing their share of the electorate on Tuesday.

Again, this isn’t to say that youth won’t increase their share of the electorate, but don’t be surprised if it holds steady at 17%. More importantly, don’t use that “share of the electorate” figure as an accurate measure of youth participation. More on that below.

Don’t Compare Apples to Oranges:
There are two measures of youth turnout from 2004 - those taken from national exit polling, and a more accurate measure taken from the Current Population Survey. While the CPS data is more accurate (and it is what you will find on most fact sheets from CIRCLE), it also does not come out until months after the election and uses a different methodology than exit polling. To ensure that we are not comparing apples to oranges on Election Night, it is best that, when measuring youth turnout, we compare the 2008 exit polls to the 2004 exit polls. Here are the exit poll numbers from 2004.

Use these as your baseline when reporting on Tuesday’s youth turnout:
18 - 29 year olds:
•    Vote Count = 19.4 million
•    Turnout = 48%
•    Share = 17%

Young Voter Factsheet – background demographics and turnout statistics.
http://www.rockthevote.com/assets/publications/electronic-press-kit/2008-young-voters-factsheet.pdf

Young Voter Polling – young voters’ top issues, party ID, and more. From Rock the Vote’s bipartisan polling team of Ed Goeas and Celinda Lake.
http://www.rockthevote.com/about/about-young-voters/polling/

Young Voter Myths and Facts – common misperceptions about the youth vote and the facts behind them.
http://www.rockthevote.com/assets/publications/electronic-press-kit/young-voter-myths-and-facts.pdf

Share vs. Turnout – common errors in estimating young voters’ electoral turnout and how to avoid making them.
http://www.rockthevote.com/assets/publications/electronic-press-kit/memo-share-vs-turnout.doc

We precinct walked in Walnut Creek in the pouring rain!