Author to address youth voting issues

Participation in presidential elections among 18- to 24-year-olds has seen a dramatic decline since 18-year-olds were first permitted to vote in 1972, according to the Federal Election Commission. \nPhiladelphia Inquirer columnist and author of "Taking Back the Vote: Getting American Youth Involved in Our Democracy" Jane Eisner hopes to do something about that. \nEisner will discuss the reasons young people don't vote and what can be done to encourage voting at 11 a.m. Monday in the School of Public and Environmental Affairs atrium.\nEisner said when young people choose to get involved, they tend to opt for community service over politics. \n"They're doing community service instead of voting." Eisner said. "I think that's very dangerous. There's a big gap between those who volunteer and those who vote."\nEisner also lists the decline of civic education, increasing rancor in politics and the depersonalization of the political process as other reasons young people don't vote.\nSPEA Professor Leslie Lenkowsky said SPEA decided to bring Eisner to campus because, with the election less than a month away, her work on youth voting is timely. \n Lenkowsky said young people have a difficult time connecting their volunteer work to politics. \n"Young people are into volunteering, but they have a hard time making the connection between working at a homeless shelter and the kinds of public policies that effect homelessness," Lenkowsky said. \nLenkowsky said he was uncertain about the effects of many of the media campaigns, such as the World Wrestling Entertainment's "Smack Down Your Vote" or MTV's "Choose or Lose" campaigns, aimed at increasing turnout among young voters.\n"They're very entertaining, but at the end of the day, they may not be enough of a reason to get up on a damp Tuesday morning in November," Lenkowsky said.\nEisner said she anticipates young people will vote this year in greater numbers than they have in the past. She said the close election, terrorism and the War in Iraq will all likely help increase participation.\nVice President of the IU's College Democrats senior Morgan Tilleman and Press Secretary for the College Republicans junior Mike Trevino both said they also thought voter participation among young people would increase this year.\n"We're seeing vastly increased interest in voting and in our group this fall," Tilleman said.\nTrevino said his group's meetings have grown from around 20 students last spring to around 70 or 80 students this fall.\n"We need to be paying attention to current events, be involved in our communities and learn how to deliberate," Eisner said. \nShe said it's important to learn to listen to people with whom you disagree and realize that they also want what's best for the country.\n"There's going to be other people on the other side who aren't just godless profligate liberals or crazy zealot conservatives," Eisner said. \n-- Contact staff writer Daniel Wells at djwells@indiana.edu