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Big Developments in California’s Youth Vote
By Rocky Fernandez
President
California Young Democrats
Amidst Governor Schwarenegger’s tragic mountain of vetoed bills (dude-they were all on the internet for you to read during the budget deadlock), it’s important to highlight one diamond that emerged from that rough with his signature: SB 381, the Online Voter Registration Act, by Democratic State Senator Charles Calderon. The California Young Democrats supported this bill as one of our top priorities for the legislative session.
This legislation allows people to register to vote online, provided they have a signature on file with the California Department of Motor Vehicles. You see, previously you couldn’t do the entire registration online-there would always have to be a printed form that you had to sign and mail back. This fixes that problem, and removes the last barrier to true electronic registration. Hopefully this will be in place by 2010, and we’ll join Washington and Arizona in having such a no-brainer kind of system.
When it’s finally ready to go, voters will be able to go online and register in all kind of places-from their front porches, their kitchens, or the local pub. How excellent is that?
In even bigger news, the California Young Democrats opened our brand new headquarters this past weekend in Stockton!
We kicked off our statewide Young Voter Revolution campaign this past Saturday, where dozens of YDs showed up to canvass malls, parks, coffee shops, and schools to get young voters pledged to vote for the Democratic ticket.
This is just one part of our statewide campaign to get the youth vote out this year.
Why did we pick Stockton? Because that’s where the competitive races are, and where our peer-to-peer efforts to mobilize the youth vote will make the most impact. After a disastrous budget process, clearly we need to send more Democrats to Sacramento. With recent polls showing young voters in favor of Democrats by a 27-point margin, we know that the more we mobilize, the more we win!
Just like any other voting bloc, the youth vote doesn’t turn out on its own, so we’re out with canvassers knocking on the doors of young voters and getting pledges to vote for the Democratic ticket in the Central Valley and against Propositions 4 & 8.
CYD knows how to get young voters to vote-by registering them, talking to them, and getting them pledged for Democrats! It’s amazing that more campaigns haven’t embraced this-after all, young voters will show up when a) they’re registered, b) they’ve chatted about voting with a peer, and c) are sent reminders to vote near Election Day. All for a lot less than it takes to barrage older voters with costly mail pieces, robocalls, and TV ads (tactics that, FYI, aren’t very effective for young voters).
This peer-to-peer outreach is happening throughout the state, and we’ve armed all of our members with the tools to get young voters out. If the entire state gets our younger volunteers and canvassers talking to other young voters, they’re going to build a bloc of young, Democratic voters whose party affiliation will be set early in life and will lead to Democratic victories for the next 20-30 years.
The Year of the Young Voter is here.
Rocky Fernandez is the President of the California Young Democrats. He is also an elected member of the AC Transit Board of Directors.
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