Maine’s youth voter turnout expected to surge, report says

BANGOR – Maine’s younger voters could play a larger role in deciding the outcome of this November’s election than in past years, according to a newly released report.

“Young people can be mobilized,” said Mark Lopez, research director at the University of Maryland’s Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, the group that conducted the study. “It’s not hard to get them to the polls. It’s as simple as asking.”

And, in Maine – where youth voter turnout is consistently above the national average – both major parties are asking.

“There was actually a line to get to our table,” Nathaniel Walton, chairman of the Maine

College Republicans, said of a recent membership drive at the University of Maine. There, the group signed up more than 100 incoming freshman as new members – a single-day record, Walton said.

Walton, a 21-year-old sophomore at Bates College in Lewiston, attributed the group’s recent success, in part, to a dissatisfaction among young people with the majority Democrats who have presided over the state’s lethargic economy.

State Rep. Emily Ann Cain, D-Orono, represents the traditionally Democratic district, which includes the Orono campus.

She said she expected young voters to take a particular interest in this year’s election, where issues such as a proposed Taxpayer Bill of Rights, aimed at limiting government spending, loom large for future generations.

“We’re trying to make these issues relevant to young people,” said Cain, a former UM student. “Students really do care. We just don’t ask them a lot.”

Young voters in general – and particularly in off-year or midterm elections – are less likely to go to the polls than their older counterparts, the CIRCLE report finds.

While that also holds true in Maine, the report finds, the state’s young voters – defined as ages 18 to 29 – are more likely to vote than their counterparts in most other states.

Even in 2002, when only 31 percent of young Mainers voted, that number was significantly higher than the 22 percent national average.

Maine’s youth voter turnout was fifth in the nation in 2004 at 59 percent. That spike in turnout, Lopez said, along with this year’s high-profile governor’s race, could signal a boost in the 2006 turnout among young voters.

He forecast that this year’s midterm election could draw 37 percent of the youth vote – similar to the turnout in 1994, the last midterm election to follow a surge in young voters headed to the polls.

While Walton sees a dissatisfaction with the state’s current Democratic administration as a motivating factor for young voters, Lopez said a national anti-Republican tenor also could play a role in the Democratic-leaning Maine.

“Young voters tend to lean Democratic,” Lopez said. “So I would say that any increase in youth turnout would help Democrats.”

While Lopez said he expected Maine’s youth voter turnout to be higher this year than in 2002 – the last midterm election – the state, he said, has been difficult to predict.

“It’s always above the national average,” Lopez said, although noting that the Maine youth vote in off-year elections seems to ebb and flow depending on local issues on the ballot. “Maine to some extent goes to the beat of its own drum.”

The report can be viewed at www.civicyouth.org.