State officials want increase in voter turnout

If you think your vote has been ignored because you're young, the secretary of state says you are probably right.

But with the 2004 election on the horizon, Republican Arizona Secretary of State Jan Brewer said she has made it a priority to increase voter turnout among the college-aged voter bloc, which has a history of low turnout in past elections.

Brewer said young voters have been unfairly labeled as apathetic and overlooked for too long.

"In the past, they've not been made aware of what's going on, and we haven't reached out," Brewer said.

Brewer said that the state is trying a new approach to appeal to voters by targeting malls, community colleges, universities and other places frequented by youth and getting their attention by more creative means.

"We have really tried to step it up and get young voters involved," Brewer said. "What's taking place and the decisions being made when they are 18 to 24 is going to impact the most important part of their lives."

On top of the added outreach, Brewer redesigned a birthday card sent to every new 18-year-old in the state, which comes with a voter registration form attached. In the past, the birthday card program was ineffective because it wasn't designed with young voters in mind, Brewer said.

"It's a little more trendy now," Brewer said. "It doesn't have government fingerprints all over it, you know?"

Brewer also is hoping a visit from "Declare Yourself," a nationwide non-partisan music and spoken-word college tour aimed at empowering a new generation of voters, will improve the historically dismal youth voter turnout after rolling into the UA Feb. 16.

An original copy of the Declaration of Independence will be on display for the tour, as will voter outreach staff from the secretary of state's office to register voters.

"The 18- to 29-year-old demographic has the ability to swing the vote if they turn out in mass for the next election," said Mary McGuire, "Declare Yourself" associate director.

Nationally, 64 percent of voters between the ages of 18 and 29 don't vote, which has lead politicians to ignore their issues and perpetuated the opinion that young voters are apathetic, McGuire said.

"In our research, we have found that it's not that young people don't vote because they are apathetic; it's because they feel that they don't have enough information," McGuire said. "Once people start voting in a large bloc, politicians will have to pay attention to them."

Jim Marten, manager of the secretary of state's southern Arizona office, echoed McGuire, saying that there has been a vacuum at the universities in the way of voter education and registration efforts.

"It's one of those things where the effort was not made in the past to get out to the universities. This will be one of the first times we've really gone out and got involved at the universities," Marten said. "We really want to encourage them to get out and vote."

Another problem is that many university voters are from out of state and fail to use an absentee vote in their hometown or register to vote here after they meet the state's residency requirement of having lived here at least 29 days, Marten said.

Based on the number of requests for early ballots in the presidential preference election in Pima County, it looks as though voter interest at the UA may already be on the rise, said Chris Roads, Pima County registrar for voters.

"I am getting a whole lot of them with the arizona.edu e-mail addresses," Roads said.

The county hasn't had great success registering UA voters in the past. They normally make one to two trips a year to the campus to sign up voters on the Mall and are mostly met with lackluster results, Roads said.

On average, 10 to 12 students will register during their annual or bi-annual UA stop, which is well under the number of older people who register at other locations, Roads said.

But with a president as well as state representatives on the ballot, Roads said there may be more incentive than ever for young voters to cast their ballots.

"The potential to make change and impact the people really making the decisions for you is very significant," Roads said.