Bits and Byters

By most recent polls the U.S. presidential race will not go down to the wire, but if it should the winner may be decided by a new group of voters: those Americans under thirty who have more or less been raised on bits and bytes and who are now given their first chance to flex political muscle.

These are the children of baby boomers. In the last election, less than half of eligible voters under thirty actually dragged themselves to the polls; even so making up seventeen percent of the total vote. There is, however, strong evidence that a far higher percentage of the bits and bytes generation will turn out this time and that most of their votes will go to Barack Obama: The bits and byters may well come to Obama's rescue.

Statistically, youth turnout has risen steadily since the 2000 presidential election, but this year it has soared. During several state primaries, youth turnout doubled, some even tripled, compared with 2004.

And not only that, bits and byters, who overwhelmingly oppose the Iraq war and President George W. Bush's policies--and who can blame them--have done more than just vote; they have jumped into politics--to be sure, their style of politics: using Facebook to share information at a phenomenal pace, raise money, and set up rallies, and mostly for Mr. Obama. They have also used YouTube, in its infancy during the 2004 campaign, to reach millions of potential voters through music.

All signs are that they are very motivated about this election, and that they may well decide its outcome. This may come as a surprise to some pollsters, but should not when you consider what happened at the start of the primary season. In Iowa in January, Obama lost decisively to both Hillary Clinton and John Edwards in the thirty-plus vote, while he won the under-thirty vote by a 5-to-1 margin, enough to propel him to victory.

Those bits and byters are still for Obama; in fact, two-thirds of them say they are Democrats. According to John Della Volpe, director of polling for the Harvard Institute of Politics, the youngest age bracket (eighteen to twenty-four) favor Obama over John McCain by more than twenty percentage points; and it's unlikely that the choice of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as the Republican vice-presidential nominee will change that, given that young people are much less socially conservative than she is.

Obama's huge lead in the youth demographic may be partially obscured by current polling techniques. Although most pollsters do call people on cell phones, they still rely primarily on landlines, according to Della Volpe. Better than half of the eighteen to twenty-four bracket do not even own land-line phones, he said, and as a rule have sharply different views on the big issues--the war(s), the economy, who should run that country--than those who do.

Of course, it's still not a given that young voters will in fact Obama into office, but the bits and byters are turning into a political juggernaut that will dominate and change U.S. politics in the future. They have the numbers to do it: By 2015, once they are all old enough to vote, they will comprise a full third of the electorate; and they have at their fingertips the most powerful information, organizing, and mobilizing tools--and know how to use them.

And they will most likely not settle for politics as usual. Having grown up on the instant communication of bits and bytes they will want to be involved in the act of governing by contributing ideas before decisions are made. What's more, they serve as a collective watchdog that will ensure that politicians do keep their word: if they don't, millions will know about it a few keystrokes later.

So, no matter who wins, the new president will have a tiger by the tail.

And this just in:

In a poll that has correctly predicted the winner of every presidential election since it began running in 1992, classroom video news network Channel One has Barack Obama trouncing John McCain by a 17-point margin, with 58.5% of the vote to McCain's 41.5%.

Several million teen voters have Obama taking every single swing state except Missouri, including Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Iowa and New Hampshire.

Let's hope so.

Coeur d'Alene, Idaho-based Ulf Wolf writes about the Digital Divide and Cyber Crime for Words & Images (ulf@words-images.com)