Seattle City Councilmember Bruce Harrell

At last month’s Youth Voter Registration Drive at City Hall, over 1,200 youth voters registered over a course of several weeks leading up to the Drive. Seattleites are aware of the hurdles that prevent youth from engaging in the election process and we wanted to do our part to help! I agreed to co-sponsor this event with King County Elections, Clear Channel Communications, local businesses and other nonpartisan organizations. The event provided a fun and safe environment to assist with voter registration, while finding solutions to barriers that may keep youth ages 18 to 25 from voting.

Registration Drive participants also disseminated information to help young people become knowledgeable, informed voters. I was pleased to see different party affiliations and differing voting preferences convene for this event.

Dubbed “The Year of the Youth Vote”, CIRCLE (Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement) recognized 2008 as the year where youth voter turnout in the primaries and caucuses nearly doubled compared to the 2000 primary. Also, there was an estimated 44 million young people who are now eligible to vote in US elections. Their numbers now represent 22 percent of all eligible voters.

I believe, and it has been substantiated, that youth voters were pivotal in electing their candidates and deciding on issues up and down the ballot. When young people get involved, they tend to stay involved. It behooves our City to continue to involve our youth in the political process. We don’t want them to be excluded, because our success can be largely attributable to their optimism and hard work.

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