Power to the youth

The media reports that 2004's youth vote turnout isn't much of a departure from that of the 2000 election.\n"Fewer than one in 10 voters Tuesday were 18 to 24, about the same proportion of the electorate as in 2000," according to one Associated Press article.\nThe numbers don't look very impressive, the media's saying. We say, the media's not looking close enough.\nNationwide, 18- to 29-year-olds comprised 17 percent of Tuesday's election turnout. So, while the percentages indicate not much has changed among voter ages 18 to 29, the total number of voters indicate otherwise.\nOverall, 114.9 million people voted this election, showing the largest numbers to visit the polls in three decades. And despite what you might have heard, the number of young voters rose in proportion.\nThat means the American youth vote, like the overall vote, was larger than it's been in nearly three decades -- a fact buried at the bottom of one too many articles covering the topic.\nWhether young people decided to "Rock the Vote," "Vote or Die" or plain ol' hit the polls, we cast our ballots right along with the rest of America. And yet, the focus seems locked on the fact that the percentages haven't changed.\nHere in Bloomington, on-campus voting increased by 21.49 percent, according to the Monroe County Clerk's Office. That number doesn't even include the amount of absentee and off-campus ballot casting. We just want to say "good job young voters" -- even if nobody else will.