Millenials are allegedly more community-minded than Generation X, so it will be interesting to see 2006 voter turnout for college students. Inside Higher Ed has a story stating that early returns and polls show turnout for students to be up, however I noticed some data in the Wall Street Journal that turnout among the 18-29 age group was 11%, same as 2002. Can academic libraries both respond to and encourage civic participation among students? In the past my library has had voter registration forms available, has held political events in the library’s auditorium, and of course we have political/current events books available for checkout. What else can we do and what has your library done?
I think we’ll see that students did make a difference in this election. At my institution we had lots of messages and activity geared to getting students registered and activated about voting. I will be interested to see what impact students did have on the election.
Until we get online elections the vote will not be rocked. Oh and Rock is Dead anyway….
Brian, folks of both parties have complained about irregularities with electronic voting machines, so until they get that right I doubt voting will go online. The trend in Oregon is voting snail mail with a paper trail, which doesn’t exactly fit with techno-determinism. Thanks for the update about rock. I guess we are supposed to mash-up the vote?