Voterpalooza

By: Jeff Kelly LowensteinDATA: Click here to download a database of registered voters broken down by Chicago wards and age groups in an Excel format.

As a field coordinator at the United States Hispanic Leadership Institute, 22-year-old Eira Corral sees a lot of young people registering to vote in Chicago. She said students are energized about voting, and she’s excited about it.

“They see the role of youth in this election,” Corral said. “It’s very historic within their own time that they have an African American, a woman, and, until recently, a Latino [running for President]. The fact that we’re part of that history has energized these people.”

Corral said the Institute has registered about 2,000 young voters in Cook County since October. “It’s our generation that’s coming together with us,” she said.

Tens of thousands of young people in Chicago have joined the voting rolls since September. In fact, 18- to 24-year olds were the largest pool of people to join the city’s voter rolls between September and the January deadline for the Feb. 5 primary election, according to an analysis by The Chicago Reporter.

Close to 22,000, or 26 percent, of the 84,427 new voters were between 18 and 24 years old, according to the Reporter’s analysis. In September, by contrast, 18- to 24-year-olds represented just 8 percent of the city’s 1.26 million registered voters.

In addition, just 10 percent of the city’s registered voters were between the ages of 25 and 29 in September. But 25- to 29-year olds accounted for 19 percent, of the folks who’ve registered since that time.

For Paul Green, director of the Institute for Politics at Roosevelt University, the surge in young voter registration can be attributed largely to two factors: the Democratic presidential candidates and the close competition between U.S. Sen. Barack Obama and U.S. Sen. Hillary Clinton.

“Obviously, there is an Obama factor, and probably, to a lesser degree, a Clinton factor,” said Green, who has written about the Chicago political scene for decades. “Given the competition between the two, you are going to have a significant turnout because for the first time in a long time the presidential primary is going to mean something in Illinois.”

It’s not only about Obama and Clinton, according to 44th Ward Alderman Thomas M. Tunney. With 912, Tunney’s North Side ward had the highest number of new 18- to 24-year old registered voters in the city.

The 44th Ward had more new registered voters than any other ward in the city, and 63 percent of the 3,886 folks who’ve registered there since September were younger than 30 years old, according to the Reporter’s analysis.

Tunney said the numbers are, in part, a reflection of the ward’s high number of young and educated people and his service office’s interactions with constituents.

“We have a lot of new residents who need to get moving permits and need to have parking visitor passes,” he said. “We make a point of asking people if they are registered to vote.”

Tunney did say that the Clinton and Obama candidacies stimulated a lot of registration, especially as the deadline for registration approached.

Nearly 9,750, or 44 percent, of the new voters in the 18- to 24-year old bracket lived in the 20 wards where African Americans made up at least two-thirds of the residents.

Among predominantly black wards, the 34th Ward on the city’s Far South Side had the highest total, with 602 new voters in the 18- to 24-year-old bracket, while the 5th Ward, which includes parts of Hyde Park and South Shore, had the second highest with 567.

“This is on both fronts,” said 5th Ward Alderman Leslie Hairston. “We increased our efforts to get young people to register, [and] a lot of it is because it’s Sen. Obama’s native home. Young people are finally excited about participation and getting behind a candidate that hears them.”
Other efforts also contributed to the surge in 18- to 24-year-old registered voters in black communities.

As part of its Active Citizen Project, the Mikva Challenge works with the Chicago Board of Elections to train high school students to serve as election judges at the polls, according to the organization’s Web site. The Mikva Challenge is a nonprofit that works to engage young people in the political process, including registering voters.

Elaine Brown, student judge coordinator with Mikva, said the organization has worked with high schools in the Englewood and Roseland neighborhoods, among others. The program trained 1,882 high school students to serve as election judges at the polls this year.

Although many of the judges are too young to vote themselves, their participation can have a ripple effect within their families.

Brittany Davis, a 16-year-old junior at Bowen High School who lives in the West Englewood neighborhood, was trained by Mikva. She will serve as an election judge on Tuesday. Davis said her 21-year-old brother expressed a greater desire to vote, in part, because of her involvement in the program.

Registration totals among 18- to 24-year olds were lower in predominantly Latino wards. In fact, six of the seven wards with the lowest number of new 18- to 24-year-old registered voters were in wards with 50 percent or more Latino residents.

Ricardo Muñoz, alderman of the 22nd Ward, noted that a large portion of Latinos are not U.S. citizens and therefore cannot vote.

Still, Muñoz said his office saw high levels of excitement among young people, especially college students galvanized by Obama’s opposition to the war in Iraq.

More than 3,600, or 16 percent, of the new registered voters in the 18- to 24-year old age group lived in majority Latino wards.

It’s unknown what impact these young voters will have on Illinois’ primary. So far, Obama has benefited more from young voters than his Democratic Party rivals, according to press reports.
But Michael Altman, a consultant for the Mikva Challenge, said that while some 18- to 24-year-old voters participate on the presidential level, they don’t vote for many of the other, more local races.
“One of the challenges in this election with young people is that I’ve seen a few who voted for president, but didn’t vote for delegates pledged to that candidate,” said Altman, who retired in 2007 after teaching for 36 years in the Chicago Public Schools. “We try to [get them] to see the vast array of candidates and … where they can go to get a take on the background of candidates and their qualifications.”

And while Green of Roosevelt University noted that the early voting period, which produced a record response for this primary election, gives voters more ways to get to the polls, he was unconvinced that higher registration levels among young people will translate into greater political impact.

“I’m not convinced that it’s going to be an avalanche; it’s more a snow drift than a snow avalanche,” Green said. “The question is: Will they vote?”