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Get out and vote - or don't.

More than 120 million Americans voted on Nov. 4, 2008. According to infoplease.com, 65,098,323 voted for Barack Obama, while 57,155,296 voted for John McCain. But as printed in a politico.com article, in percentage terms, only between 60.7 percent and 61.7 percent of the 208.3 million eligible voters cast ballots this year, compared with 60.6 percent of those eligible in 2004, according to a voting analysis by American University political scientist Curtis Gans.

As taken from the same politico.com article, Gans found that state efforts to make voting more convenient — for instance, through programs for early or mail-in voting — did not significantly boost turnout. Of the 14 states with the largest turnout increases, only six had so-called convenience voting initiatives, while in the 13 states with the greatest decline in voting, 12 had some form of convenience voting.

But one sector of voters that did drastically increase is the youth vote. According to the Center For Information & Research On Civic Learning And Engagement (CIRCLE), 23 million Americans under the age of 30 voted, an increase of 3.4 million. These young voters overwhelmingly supported Obama, 68 percent to 30 percent for McCain.

With such a large youth vote increase, why not more of a total increase? Did people not vote because they knew their candidate would lose anyways? Not so according to local voter Jennifer Ziggarelli, who lives in Democratically-slanted New York yet still voted for Republican John McCain. She says, “I wanted to show my support for McCain…and I know New York isn’t a Republican state.” She added, “Also, there is more than one election [referring to state/local elections]... so it’s still important to vote, no matter whom your candidate is.”

Did people abstain from voting because they are not registered? According to the official United States Election Assistance Commission website, eight states (Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Minnesota, Montana, New Hampshire, Wisconsin, Wyoming) allow residents to register the day of the election. North Dakota doesn’t even require a registration! The other 41 states have strict registration deadlines. (New York State’s deadline is always three weeks before the election. As of Nov 1, there were over 12 million registered voters in New York State according to the official NYS election website. 169 million voters registered nationally, according to Wikipedia.com.) Nicholas Ruscitto, a resident of Schenectady county who is registered to vote in Cortland County, did not make the drive on election day. “It would have been a pain to get out there. Next time I will get an absentee ballot – or just register locally.”

Joel DiTata, from Amsterdam, NY, did not vote either. He is registered, but didn’t feel the urge. “I just didn’t feel like driving home. Why would I waste the time for one vote.”

Bridget Streeter, originally from Ticonderoga, did make sure to register in her current county of Albany. And she made sure to vote on election Tuesday. “I feel that it’s one of the best parts of being an American citizen is the right to vote. I know people in other countries would die to vote. I don’t know why people won’t vote. It’s their chance to be heard. ”

That means for the next four years, almost forty percent of Americans will be politically muted. Maybe in 2012 their voices will be added to the politically charged hubbub.

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