stats, stories

2000 US Presidential Election: 36% of eligible voters age 18-24 vote.
63% of general population votes.
2004 US Presidential Election: 47% of eligible voters age 18-24 vote. (+11%)
67% of general population votes. (+4%)
67% of eligible voters over 25 voted
73% of eligible voters age 55-74 voted (highest participation)

In both years, voters age 18-24 were the least represented age group.

In 2004, 18-24 years olds comprised 12.6% of the general electorate but cast only 9.3% of the votes.

In the 2008 primaries and caucuses, there was an average increase in participation by voters age 18 to 24 by 103%.

According to a recent Democracy Corps poll, 72% of eligible voters age 18-24 rated their likelihood of voting in the 2008 election as "10 out of 10." - 56% of which said that this is the beginning of a new period in history, and 58% of which said that this is the most important presidential election America has yet to experience.

1. 18-24 year old Americans fully participate in all aspects of American life. We have jobs, pay bills, pursue education, have families, need health care and transportation as well as financial and ecological security. Some of us are even fighting the wars in Iraq or Afghanistan. However, we are the age group that least participates in the presidential election - in 2004, Americans over 25 voted at a rate nearly one and a half times that of 18 to 24 year olds. Things are about to change, with 72% of this age group rating themselves as highly likely to vote.

2. Americans age 18 to 24 have made significant gains in improving their share of the vote - in 2004, participation in the presidential election was up 11% from the 2000 election. However, in 2004, only 47% of 18 to 24 year olds voted compared to 67% of all voters over the age of 25. Since young voters have a greater share of their lifetimes ahead of them, shouldn't they claim their share of the vote?

information anxiety

This little phrase stuck with me after i skimmed through the first reading of the semester. This is totally something I relate to - as a news junkie with a solitary, computer-bound job, i listen to way to much NPR and read way to much Telegraph, New York Times and CNN. I went through a phase this summer where i checked the Gallup poll daily, before I decided that it was doing for was giving me stomachaches. How can the election be so close when everyone I talk to on a regular basis, including my social conservative mother, is firmly in support of Obama? I mean, c'mon, this is Kansas.

So this is my experience with data: it's like germs. You know its there because people tell you it's there, not because you see it. Little bits of data pile up and create bigger entities and phenomenons, like sickness, and then people say, "there's germs going around." So we live with these little abstract invisible beings, and they affect us and we can affect them - but you can't really experience them until the amass into something larger and more cohesive.

Here's my objectives for project one: to bring an aspect of voting and election data from the realm of abstract factoids to that of more tangible, personal storytelling. The presidential election gets tangled in every aspect of American life, public and private, and if we are to make sense of what's really going on, we have to gather and analyze data and then use the tools of design to draw out and the patterns and stories. The ultimate goal of this motion graphic is to transform abstract, technically specific but experientially ambiguous data into a complete experience the audience can relate to and engage with.