With youth voter turnout up dramatically in '04, '05, and '06, we knew 2008 could be a big year for the youth vote. We had an open field of candidates and a compressed primary schedule. In addition, more and more hard data showed that youth voter mobilization programs were effective. The one thing left to really mobilize the youth vote was for the candidates themselves to focus on youth. We decided to help make sure that all the candidates were paying attention to young voters.

In the summer of 2007, we launched our What’s Your Plan? campaign. We showed up at hundreds of fundraisers, town hall meetings and photo ops in the early primary states to ask the candidates face-to-face to talk to us about the issues we care about. Pairing new technology with classic organizing, we also launched big voter registration and get out the vote drives across the country to show that on-the-ground efforts to reach young voters work. Across the country, we mobilized 500 volunteers in 28 states to ask the candidates about their plans on issues like global warming, college affordability, health care and financial security. We also recruited and trained 250 "Caucus Rock Stars" in Iowa to mobilize 5,000 of their peers. 

The What’s Your Plan? Campaign played a major role in injecting youth issues into the campaign and our voter registration and mobilization effort on college campuses drove college students to the polls. In part due to our efforts, youth turnout more than doubled in the 2008 primaries.

2006 Elections
In the fall of 2006, the Student PIRGs’ New Voters Project worked on 80 college campuses in Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Indiana, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Washington, and Wisconsin to boost voter turnout. We forged alliances with student government leaders, faculty and administrators and recruited over 1,100 students to lead or volunteer on their campus.

Our coalition partners and student leaders helped register 75,000 students to vote. Leading up to Election Day, we made 94,000 personalized Get Out the Vote reminders either over the phone or face-to-face, including 50,000 contacts on Monday and Tuesday alone.

The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at the University of Maryland measured the turnout increase between 2002 and 2006 in student-dense precincts where we and other partners focused our efforts. The analysis focused on a set of 36 precincts in Ohio, Colorado, Connecticut, Iowa, and Michigan and found that average turnout in those precincts increased six times over 2002. Nationally, the increase in youth voter turnout was more than three percent (2 million votes).

2005 Elections
The Student PIRGs’ New Voters Project focused on youth voter registration and turnout efforts in eight states in 2005. We helped to register more than 18,000 voters and made more than 48,000 Get Out the Vote contacts. An analysis of raw data by CIRCLE looked at turnout in New Jersey and Virginia, the two states with major off-year elections. Their study indicates that young people voted in bigger numbers in the gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia in 2005 than they did in 2001. The number of votes cast in precincts with a high concentration of college students increased by an average of 15 percent above the 2001 election in Virginia, and by an average of nearly 20 percent above the 2001 election in New Jersey.

2004 Elections
In 2004, the Student PIRGs’ New Voters Project succeeded in becoming the largest grassroots youth voter mobilization effort in this country's history. We registered 524,000 18-to-30 year-olds to vote, and contacted more than 500,000 young registered voters during the get-out-the-vote phase of the campaign.

Our model of voter registration and voter turnout utilized the Student PIRGs' time-tested and academically reviewed model of peer-to-peer outreach; we walked door-to-door in neighborhoods and dorms; made thousands of phone calls; and went into classrooms and community centers. Our work helped stop the decline in youth voter turnout. Surveys show that youth turnout (18-29 year olds) rose 9 points over 2000 turnout.

Read the research analysis of our 2004 project.

We also sponsored the 2004 Presidential Youth Debate.