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Treehugger put up a poll asking readers if they will be voting in the upcoming elections. Given that I live in Iowa I thought I could perhaps address the one issue they mentioned in the article; voter turnout for young voters. My experience at the caucus makes me think that this election year will be a banner year for the younger generation’s participation in an election. My caucus precinct had 282 people in it. If the chairs put out for seating are an indication of normal turnout, we had about twice as many as expected, perhaps even more. Easily half of the participants were under 40. Listening to the news and talking to other caucus goers it seems that they had similar experiences, as long as their caucus was in an area that a young person could reasonably be in (i.e., not a lot of young people voting in a neighborhood of half million homes, etc).

The possibility of young people finally getting their act together and rocking the vote is intoxicating. I think young people fail to understand that voting in primaries and caucuses is more important than the actual vote in November. In a primary or caucus you can vote to get a candidate elected as the party rep. In the general election in November you are stuck with whoever is your party’s candidate.

It sounds like this election year will be an exciting one. It looks like we’ll have record participation overall and record participation with young voters. I make no bones about my representation that America needs change in our check and balance system, in the White House and in Congress, and I would say the Court system too, although that doesn’t seem as likely. It sounds like this year might be the year we get it!