November 10, 2004

National youth vote lower than expected
Elisabeth Calhoon
The Transcript

Though extensive efforts were made to bring youth voters to the polls last week, they still produced roughly the same percentage of voters as in the 2000 election, according to Associated Press exit polls.

Joan McLean, professor of politics and government, said she was disappointed.

“Young people had a stake in this election,” McLean said. “Iraq is their war, it will be their Supreme Court during their productive, or reproductive, years, and it will be their Social Security and environment affected.”

However, the big surprise in this election was not the youth voters, according to Michael Esler, professor of politics and government.

“Everyone expected newly registered and young voters to turn out for Kerry,” Esler said. “Republicans did an even better job getting the Evangelical Christians out to vote.”

The Evangelical Christians identified with Bush on the moral issues of this election such as abortion, gay rights and stem cell research Esler said.

About 80 percent of Ohio Wesleyan students voted, according to a random telephone survey completed Tuesday night.

Journalism students called 186 students – about 10 percent of the student population - of which 34, or about 18 percent, said they did not vote. About 70 percent of students surveyed voted for Kerry, while about 29 percent voted for Bush. Only one student voted for another candidate. The survey has a margin of error of about 3 percent.

The percentage of students who voted roughly matched results of a survey of students given by journalism students in October, in which 86 percent said they intended to vote in the election. However, Kerry's margin over Bush increased in the actual vote, likely due to undecided voters choosing Kerry.

In the October survey, 55 percent said they planned to vote for Kerry, and 30 percent said they planned to vote for Bush. The remaining 15 percent were undecided.

Of 152 voters, only four said they voting status challenged. Three students reported being asked for identification to prove they were an OWU student, and a fourth said he filed a provisional ballot because he had not mailed in an absentee ballot he had requested.

The legality of election observers was in question until just before the election, when a federal court judge in Ohio ruled that observers would be allowed at polling places. Democrats charged Republicans had filed, and would file, many bogus challenges of newly-registered voters, while Republicans countered their actions would prevent widespread voter fraud.

In the United States as a whole, voter turnout was a little less than 60 percent, whereas in Ohio , voter turnout was 69.9 percent.

In the election, George Bush won with 51 percent of the popular vote, while Kerry received 48 percent and Nader received 1 percent according to the Columbus Dispatch .

An issue in last week's election was gay rights. In Ohio , this issue was present in Issue 1, which amended Ohio 's constitution. While the first sentence which defined marriage as between a man and a woman, was very clear and was already part of Ohio law, the meaning of the second sentence was unclear, McLean said.

The wording of the issue makes it clear there will be no civil unions for gay couples, but the implications for straight couples are not as plain. It raises such questions as: will unmarried seniors who live together still have rights given to married couples, such as hospital visitation rights?

Sophomore Paul Krog, president of College Republicans, said the implications of the amendment pointed out by gay rights groups are almost all completely false.

Property can be owned jointly, without reference to marital status and the amendment would not affect maternity leave, he said. It is up to Ohio 's courts and legislature to determine what the amendment will mean in specific cases, according to Krog.

Another issue during this election is the vacancies that will need to be filled in the Supreme Court in the coming years.

“I find this issue to be the most important thing to come out of the election,” Krog said. “Justices last a generation and their decisions last almost indefinitely.”