Rock the Vote, the Youth Vote and the 2004 Presidential Election

2:30 P.M. EDT

NOTE: Rock the Vote is a non-partisan, non-profit organization founded in 1990 by members of the recording industry. In addition to registering over three million new young voters, Rock the Vote street teams are engaging young people as civic activists in their communities and contributors to the political process.

MS. NISBET: Good afternoon. I'd like to welcome Jay Strell, Communications Director for Rock the Vote. Rock the Vote’s media campaigns and outreach programs have successfully helped voter turnout in America's youth today, and we look forward to hearing from Jay on some of the upcoming projects that Rock the Vote is working with as we speak.

As always, after his remarks, questions will be taken. Please state your name and affiliation before asking your question. We're also going to start out with Washington with possibly one or two questions. And again, Jay, thanks so much for being here with us.

MR. STRELL: Thank you.

MS. NISBET: Thanks.

MR. STRELL: Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Jay Strell, Communications Director for Rock the Vote.

As many of you know, Rock the Vote is probably one of the leading non-partisan, non-profit voter, youth voter engagement and registration organizations in the country. We were started back in 1990 to fight against the people who wanted to curb free expression and music lyrics in this country we turned into a voter engagement, a youth engagement and registration organization.

And I can say that this year we've been incredibly successful. We see a tremendous amount of engagement and enthusiasm amongst young voters. We haven't seen this sort of enthusiasm and engagement since probably 1992. The biggest difference this year, I would have to say, is that there is no clear preference for the youth vote.

And first, I'll talk a little bit about what Rock the Vote is doing to help get young people engaged in this election and to turn them out, and what our goals are and the methods that we're using. And then, I'll talk a little bit more broadly about the youth vote and what's kind of going on out there based on what we're seeing in the press and on the ground from the people that we speak to on a regular basis.

Rock the Vote's goal this year has, really, two main goals: One is to register a million new young voters, and we have already exceeded that goal. We're at about 1.4 million and counting. And we've been able to do that largely through online voter registration.
One of the untold stories of this election cycle, and I think that will be told after the results are in, is the use of the Internet to register people to vote.

What Rock the Vote has done and made a cornerstone of its voter registration strategy for young people this year is to have an online voter registration tool. We registered our first voter online back in 1996, but it's only this year where it's really come into its own because all the Secretary of States' voter registration forms are now available online and available for download.

And what we have done is create a tool that is available on Rock the Vote's website and then we also give away free to other websites -- and there's about a thousand websites that have our tool -- which basically is a portal into helping walk people through filling out their voter registration form, and then when they download it, all -- or print it out, all they have to do is sign their name, you know, fold it in half as an envelope -- it's already self-addressed -- and then you can just mail it in and, boom, you're registered to vote.

And right now we've seen a surge in the last three to four weeks of about 40,000, an average of 40,000 young people a day downloading voter registration forms from Rock the Vote and our partner websites, again, of which there's over a thousand.

And the important thing of having these partner websites and giving our voter registration tool away for free is that it really acts as force multiplier, where you don't have to just go to RocktheVote.com to register. You could go -- if you register to vote at MTV, which is a big partner of ours. We're not a part of MTV, but we're affiliated with MTV in the terms that we work with them and obviously they reach the demographic that we're trying to reach in our mission.

If you go to MTV.com. or BET, the Black Entertainment Television.com or you go to AOL or you go to one of the over 150 colleges and universities that have it, where now kids, as they're registering for school, can register to vote as well, they are registering through RocktheVote.com. So that's why we have been able to, to date, register about 1.4 million new voters, about 1.1 through our online voter registration tool and another 200,000 through more traditional methods, such as Community Street Teams, which we have all over the country in over 50 states and cities around this country.
It's basically young people going around in their neighborhoods with clipboards registering young -- fellow young people where they hang out, whether it be a concert, whether it be a mall, whether it be a festival, dialoguing one to one to get them registered to vote.

And also our Voter Registration Bus Tour, which has been on the road since mid-June traveling all across the country, hitting many colleges and campuses in red states and blue states, and I guess there are purple states now, as they like to say, bringing music to these campuses and creating a place where young people can be entertained but also educated on the issues and, hopefully, get registered to vote, and I think most importantly, dialogue amongst one another about the issues that are of concern to them.

And let me talk a little bit about what those issues are because organizations like Rock the Vote -- and there are a number of us out there now and we're probably the granddaddy of them all -- but there's a tremendous focus being put on the youth vote this year, but all those efforts, I think, would be a little bit for naught if there wasn't already young people being engaged in this election. That just makes our job so much easier. And it's really because of the issues that are stake in this election.

And from our -- both on our on-the-ground research and our polling research, the main issues for young people this year are the war in Iraq, and included in that is the, you know, the possibility, however remote, of a draft. You know, this is the group that is shouldering the overwhelming burden of our military commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan. They, in many cases, are paying the ultimate price defending this country. Three-quarters of the first thousand casualties have been people under the age of 30, and I think about 80 percent of the military serving in Iraq and Afghanistan is under the age of 35. These are not figures lost on young people.

The other issue that's very important, you may have seen in the New York Times today, is the rising cost of a higher education. While the growth has decreased, has slowed a bit, it's still increasing. And right now, the average debt that a college student, a college graduate has is about 16 to 18,000. And when entering a soft job market, which is where we seem to be right now, they're having difficulty finding a job that can begin to pay off their debts, pay a cost of living, and in many cases, they are having to move home.

And they see that as a bit of a broken promise where your parents tell you, "Hey, you go to college. You get your degree. You're going to get out, you're going to get a good paying job. That's the way it works." Unfortunately, that's not quite happening right now. And so, this is another concern of theirs.

Another major concern for young people is healthcare. Young Americans are twice as likely to be uninsured than the average American. And what we're finding is a number of them are falling into what we call a "healthcare gap" where they come out of school, they come off their parents' health care plan, but they haven't yet found a job where they have good benefits, such as health care. And so they are uninsured, and also because they're young and they think, "Hey, you know, nothing is going to happen to me. I'm gong to be fine." But yet, they're uninsured, and so this is a concern of theirs.

It's all these issues that have really begun to engage young people. And I would also have to say it's probably September 11th, as well, being in this -- you know, they are, in some ways, you could say, the September 11th generation. This is the first presidential election since September 11th. And what September 11th did was, it brought home to young people the connection between our -- what happens overseas and how it can affect us here at home, and also how our foreign policy can have a direct impact on their daily lives, something that they, I think in the past, it wasn't so readily apparent.

And so, it's a combination of these things that has really made young people engaged in this election and we've already seen it. Let's go back to the early Democratic primaries, where four times as many 18- to 29-year-olds participated in the Iowa caucuses than did in 2000. In the New Hampshire primary, the participation was up almost 60 percent over 2000. And the interesting thing was, for all the talk there was about Howard Dean bringing young people and newly registered voters into the political process for the first time, a lot of those young voters, ultimately in Iowa and New Hampshire, ended up voting for John Kerry. So the old adage of, you know, dated Dean, married Kerry, with young people seems to have borne out to be true.

The other thing is, is that we're seeing in some of the poll figures out there from the Harvard Institute of Politics, which has done a number of great polls on young people this year, and MTV and Generation Next, which is a poll done by Newsweek, is that the numbers of young people are seeing that they are engaged and they intend to vote this time, is about 8 in 10.

That number has been consistent throughout the campaign, and it's a higher number than we saw throughout the 2000 campaign. So clearly, young people are very engaged; they're very involved. We're seeing it on the ground. We're seeing great turnout at our Voter Registration Bus Tours. We have young people, I said, registering in record rates on our website and they are very much poised. And I think you see -- the other thing is that you see the political candidates taking them seriously as well.

For example, you have -- the Republicans have a very strong outreach to colleges and universities to register young Republicans. They've had, in the summer they had a 18-wheel rig on the road called "Reggie the Voter Registration Rig," which was going around to college campuses, was filled with X-Boxes and Playstations, and was a place where young people could hang out, learn about the, you know, Republican issues, the Republican stance on the issues and then get registered to vote.

That's been very successful for them. They have also put -- Ed Gillespie is the chairman of the Republican National Committee on the highest rated show on MTV, Total Request Live. They have also put their daughters out on the campaign trail, as we have seen, much as Kerry has.

Kerry has done some of the similar things, as well. He has put his daughters on the campaign trail. He's done some college campus tours.

One of the other things the DNC did, there was an article I think in USA Today about a week ago, is that the Democratic National Committee did about an $8 million youth-focused ad buy, where they specifically created an ad directed at young people and were buying it on channels that specific-- and shows that specifically target young people, something that we have not seen in a very long time.

And so, clearly, this shows the candidates and the political parties are willing to spend time, money and resources to reach young people in this election. Because, again, young people are very much poised to be the swing vote in this election, with, you know, as we've seen, we you see the polls every day, there are so many of them we kind of lose count, it seems these days.

But the electorate seems to be narrowly divided, highly polarized; and one of the keys to winning this election is to bring new voters into the process. Young people make up a large proportion of new voters. And so, that's why I think you're seeing the political campaigns reach out to them on various issues.

In addition, it's unclear who young people are going to vote for. Unlike '92 where there appeared to be a clear preference in President Clinton, in 2004, we still don't know exactly what direction they're going. Just yesterday, it was new Gen-Next poll from Newsweek, which showed Kerry with the lead. But if you go back and you look at the Zogby poll from a week ago, Bush was in the lead.

So it's unclear exactly where young people are going. It's hard to poll them. In a lot of these national polls, we feel they are being underrepresented because as, I just saw a new term today -- there was a piece The Philadelphia Inquirer, where they're talking about, you know, young people don't have landlines, they have cell phones only and they're calling them "cord cutters." That's what the telecommunications industry calls them, where people who don't have, you know, a home phone, but they have a cell phone, they call them "cord cutters."

And so, young people are -- you know, are very much in this cord cutting section. And so, it's still very hard to poll them to know exactly what they're doing. So, we think that their vote is still very much up for grabs and will, as they usually do, traditionally break very late in making their decision on who they're going to vote for.

So I think I'll leave it at that. You know, Rock the Vote, we're out there right now trying to -- our Voter Registration Bus Tour -- I'll just say one last thing -- the Voter Registration Bus Tour is in Florida and it's in the upper Midwest. It's turned into a "Get Out to Vote Bus Tour" now.

We're focusing on the upper Midwest on Wisconsin and Minnesota because both those states have what they call "same day voter registration," which means that you can register to vote on Election Day and then go to the ballot box. Young people respond very well to that. There was a figure from, I think, The Pew Charitable Trust that said about, that states that have same day voter registration, youth turnout is up about 15 percent.

And our big goal this year, one that we share with a number of other youth voter organizations is to get 20 million 18- to 30-year-olds to the polls on Election Day. In 2000, there were about 18 million that went to the polls. We believe 20 million and a 2 million, which would be a 2 million increase over 2000 would be a tremendous infusion of new voters into this election and could tip the scales in one direction or the other.

I think I'll stop there. And if you guys have any questions, I'm happy to answer them.

MS. NISBET: We'll go ahead and start out with Washington.

MR. STRELL: Okay.

QUESTION: Thank you. This is Maria Pena from EFE News Services.

And I was wondering if you could answer a general question about voter apathy in this country. I think the latest statistic is that less than 50 percent of the American electorate actually goes out to vote. Why do you think that is? And do you think that with the race being so tight this year, will that make a difference this time around?

MR. STRELL: Well, I think, I mean, first of all, I think I'll focus more narrowly on the youth vote.

You know, traditionally, the youth vote, let's face it, has not always lived up to its potential and its expectations. But what's funny is, is that for as much as the people like to talk about how the youth vote doesn't turn out, when you look at the raw numbers and get away from the percentages, right now there's about 40 million 18- to 30-year-olds in this country who are eligible to vote.

In 2000 there were more 29-year-olds who voted in the 2000 election than 69-year-olds. So I think it was about 1.25 million to about a little over a million. So in raw numbers, you know, young people do still turn out to vote.

The reason that I think that you're going to see young people turn out this time in larger numbers than they did in 2000 is again, because of the issues. They see the issues that are at stake. They are being very much squeezed by these issues, and they want -- they're very much like, "What can I do? How do I get involved?" And that's where and organization like Rock the Vote comes in, where we help register young, you know, register young people at a very early age, expose them to information about the issues and then help push them to the polls on election day; and who they ultimately vote for is their decision.

But I think that clearly in this election, you know, people very much realize the stakes in this election. I think that also, the thing in 2000, when people say, "Well, how does my vote matter?" I mean, you need to look no further than Florida and the close numbers there that people realize that every vote counts. And so I think that that is something that's been ingrained in everybody's mind, and young people in particular, and I think this is one of the reasons you're going to see them get out to vote this year.

MS. NISBET: Do you want to start up front? There's one more in DC.

QUESTION: Nadia Yu-Fen Tsao, The Liberty Times.

I want to clarify at least one question. Are there more eligible young voters this year than four years ago, or just, you know, are they willing to vote and to reach out is successful? And a second question is then, for young people, what -- you know, what might be the most influential media to approach them? And, does peer, you know, pressure or Internet work better for them?

Thank you.

MR. STRELL: Well, first of all, there has been, over the last four years, there are more young people eligible to vote that you'd, that we consider kind of Generation Y. Again, it's about 40 million. I think in 2000 it was about 36 million. So there has been an actual overall increase in the number of young people eligible to vote.

In terms of what is the most sort of influential media, there is some debate on that. Again, Rock the Vote uses pop culture as a medium to reach young people.

Now, you know, some people mistake that for being, well, you know, because the research shows that Jennifer Lopez tells a young person to vote, they're not going to vote, so you guys are ineffective. The point that we're making is is that we're using a medium to get a positive message in front of young people where they may not otherwise see it.

And so what we try to do is, when we work with artists or we work with media companies, is we try to put that positive pro-vote and civic engagement message in front of them where they may not otherwise see it, and whether that's integrating that into programming, whether that's having a celebrity PSA, and it's done in a way where we try to make the message ubiquitous. You know, whether it's on the Internet, whether it's on their cell phone, whether it's on the programs that they watch, because, you know, one of the things that's also very important as well is young people talking to other young people. One of the most powerful things is having another young person ask another one, "You know, are you registered to vote? You should get registered to vote." The statistics show that that is a very powerful way of doing it.

However, it's also very labor-intensive. That's why we have decided on a multi-prong approach this year where we do our media campaigns; we do online voter registration campaign; we do our cell phone campaign; and we do our celebrity PSA campaign. So, for us, it's really -- and our grassroots campaign. For us, it's really a multi-prong approach because we feel that you have to reach young people in many different ways and go to them many -- you know, with many different appeals -- the same appeal but in many different ways, in order to get them to engage. And we feel this year it's been very successful.

QUESTION: Hi, my name is Mercedes Callego from the newspaper El Correo, from Spain.

And I understand a lot of difficulties for the new voters to have register over the mail, like some states are going to ask them for the ID, others, they won't count their vote until later after the day of elections. Can you explain a little more where the problem is, because some people think that since you are talking about -- I don't remember the figure, but you said it's over a million votes --

MR. STRELL: Right.

QUESTION: -- that could make a big difference if they are not counted on the day of the election and postponed the results.

MR. STRELL: Well, let me talk a little bit about that because I'm not an election -- I'm not an election expert in terms of registration. My understanding is -- what we tell young people is, "Bring your ID. Bring some form of ID, just in case." It varies from state to state because of HAVA, which is the Help America Vote Act, which was enacted after the 2000 election. It, you know, it left it ambiguous as to whether you needed ID or not, and so different states are interpreting it in different ways. So it's just better, if you have some form of ID, to bring it with you.

That doesn't say -- that doesn't mean that if you go to the ballot and you don't have your ID that you're not going to be able to vote, because what you can do is you can cast a provisional ballot and everything will be fine from that. But you do bring up an interesting point because the issue of election irregularities. And one of the stories that has not gotten a lot of attention in this country is the issue of student voter suppression.

Students have had the right to vote on their college campus for a long time. And what happens is, is that despite a Supreme Court ruling back in 1979 that basically said that young people or college students can decide what their permanent residence is, whether they want it to be their college dorm or their, you know, their parents' home, they have the right to choose what is their permanent residence.

What you have, what we've seen both in 2000 and we've seen from instances this year, is that you'll have local election officials purposely deceive young people as to what their rights are. And what we have done -- and they'll do that in a number of different ways. Sometimes -- sometimes these local election officials don't know what the law is, which is -- you know, says a lot. But sometimes they know exactly what they're doing and there was actually a case recently in Pima County in Arizona, which is where the University of Arizona is, and a local election official was interviewed by a local TV affiliate about student voter registration. And the local election official said that if a young person tries, you know, if a student tries to vote from their campus address and it's not their permanent address that they will be prosecuted.

And the fact of the matter is that's just wrong. And so Rock the Vote moved into action with a number of other organizations out there to remind people what the law was, and we were able to get a retraction issued.

But what happens is, is that this can send a chilling effect to young people, like, "Well, gee, is this going to affect my tax status? Is it going to affect my student loan status?" You know, a number of things, "Is it going to affect my car insurance?" And so while some of these acts might be widespread or just, you know, individual cases of disenfranchisement, given the nature of the election and the closeness of this election, it could be -- you know, it could have implications for the national election.

And so Rock the Vote has joined with a number of other organizations to launch a student voting rights campaign to highlight the -- you know, to highlight these instances of student voter suppression and help shine a light on them, and also arm students with the resources to push back and fight back for their rights.

And one of the things is -- that we've told them is that we're working with the Election Protection Organization, which is a broad coalition of organizations that's out there trying to prevent voter fraud and voter disenfranchisement. And there's a number that young people can call, which is 866-OUR-VOTE. And so we are encouraging young people, if they do run into an instance of student voter suppression or disenfranchisement, to call that number because there are legal resources at your disposal.

QUESTION: Yes, Nema Raud, Postimes, Estonia.

In this celebrity culture, who are the celebrities this year who are most actively working with you?

MR. STRELL: With Rock the Vote we've got a wide array of celebrities, and they really fall across, you know, the political spectrum. Again, when these artists work with Rock the Vote, they're working in our larger cause of, you know, to get young people engaged in the political process. And they may have their own personal political views, I mean, for instance, we work with the Dixie Chicks on a program called Chicks Rock, Chicks Vote, which is to get young women engaged in the political process and embrace the role.

You know, obviously, as we've seen, the Dixie Chicks have their own personal political views, but when they work with Rock the Vote, they, you know, they're working with us on the larger goal to get, you know, young people engaged in the political process regardless of who they vote for.

And, again, I mentioned, you know, we've had some other bands that work with us, such as the Black-eyed Peas, Maroon 5, Hoobastank. Again, we try to work, because we're an organization that's directed at young people, we really try to work with groups that young people are listening to today.

And so, you know, they may -- you know, while obviously we've worked in the past with Madonna and U2, you know, we like to work with bands as well that are up and coming and that young people are paying attention to today because, you know, maybe -- when I was, you know, in the Rock the Vote demographic, I listened to U2, but, you know, someone today who is listening to the Rock the Vote message may not listen to U2, though they probably do. But anyways, that's another story. (Laughter.)

But there are some other bands we've worked -- as I said, we've worked with some Republican artists such as Toby Keith, such as Kidd Rock. We've also worked with -- we had events at the Republican Convention and the Democratic Convention and we had celebrities and artists at both conventions. I think I mentioned the Black-eyed Peas, Maroon 5, Hoobastank, Good Charlotte, Vanessa Carlton. Josh Stone has been part of our tour. Snoop Dog has been part of the tour. So we really cut across all musical genres and work with -- we also work with artists as well. And, you know, actors and actresses.
We just launched a series of celebrity-themed PSAs with Sam Jackson and Leonardo DiCaprio and Ricky Martin and Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal, Peter Skarsgard, so we really are running the gamut this year.

We've had tremendous response from the entertainment community to get involved. We also have media partnerships with Warner Brothers -- the WB, which is a very youth-focused channel here, where they have been able to integrate the Rock the Vote message and theme into their programming, whether it's, you know, putting banners up in the -- behind the -- you know, behind a school or something; or there was even an episode recently of the show Seventh Heaven where it was about voting, and it was about the process and Rock the Vote was part of the story line.

MS. NISBET: In the back.

QUESTION: Luciana Coelho, Folha de Sao Paolo, Brazil.

You told us that the young voters this year are more divided than in the past when their votes clearly went more for the Democrats. I'd like to know if you have noticed any change in their profile and if young voters are becoming more conservative.

MR. STRELL: Well, I think what we've seen, the change that we've seen is, is that increasingly, young people identify less with the political party and they identify more with the particular issue or candidate. And so, what we have seen is a move away from an identification as a Democrat or a Republican or an Independent or Green Party, and more of an identification with the candidate, whether it be Bush, whether it be Kerry, whether it be Nader, or on a particular issue.

And again, those issues run the gamut from -- you know, from the war in Iraq to jobs to higher education to gay marriage. There is a big generational split on gay marriage in this country. You know, one of the things, if you look at the polls, young people tend to be much more in favor. I think it's actually the mirror opposite of what the general electorate is. I think about 60 percent of young people favor gay marriage and about 40 percent oppose. Those figures might be a little old, but that's basically inverse to what the general public is.

And I think, you know, if you look at the two people who -- the two politicians who, you know, the mayor of San Francisco, and the mayor of New Paltz, it's no coincidence that they're both under the age of 40. I mean, in a way, you could say they're Rock the Vote politicians and they're reflecting the views and the values of, you know, of their upbringing and their constituencies.

So I think that the biggest difference is really that they identify more with issues and candidates and less with political parties. And that's why I think that you're seeing -- you know, you're seeing appeals to them based on issues and more candid appeals than sort of a set of -- you know, a set of, like, Democratic values or a set of Republican values, whatever those may be.

MS. NISBET: I'll take someone over on this side.

QUESTION: Hi, my name is Kristen Nilsen, Aftenposten, Norway.

What impact do you think that Ralph Nader will have on the youth vote? That's one question.

And the other one, registration is one thing, and that phase is over, or nearly over in most places. What will you do to -- on Election Day, to get the young people out to the polls?

MR. STRELL: Well, let me start with the last question first, and then I'll come back to the Nader question.

It's a very good question. Because, again, you know, Rock the Vote really views the whole youth vote as a continuum, where we want to get young people engaged at a very early age, in many cases, try to reach them before they turn 18 to ingrain in them the habit of voting, that, you know, voting is a thing that you -- is very cool that you should be doing. And, you know, we work with young celebrities. At the beginning of the year we had an event where we had a number of young celebrities, like Frankie Muñaz and Hilary Duff and some other young celebrities who were just turning 18, publicly register to vote and say, "Hey, the first thing I did when I was 18 was, you know, I registered to vote because I want to exercise my right to vote."

Then we help to educate them on the issues, and then ultimately, what we're doing now is to help turn them out to vote. And we're doing that in a number of different ways.

First of all, we're partnering with a number of other non-partisan voter contact and Get-Out-The-Vote groups. In particular we're working with the New Voters Project, which is funded by the Pew Charitable Trust, which is working in, I think, about a half dozen different states targeting young people, registering them, but also reaching out to them after they register them to get them out to vote; working with an organization called National Voices, which is a broad coalition of the youth vote -- of organizations that are trying to do voter contact. We're working with them to reach the people on our list.

We're going to be sending out e-mail reminders to -- we have about 675,000 people on our e-mail list. We'll be also sending text messages to about 120,000 people who are subscribing to our Rock the Vote Mobile Program, which is a civic engagement program with Motorola and Cingular Wireless.

QUESTION: How many did you say?

MR. STRELL: 120,000.

And what we'll be doing with that is sending text messages to young people which, again, I mean, a lot of older people in this country, getting a text message on your cell phone, they haven't really done it, they don't know what it's about.

Young people are growing up with this, much like growing up with the Internet, and so we're, you know, interacting on the Internet as well with young people through sending them e-mails, doing online chats. We have our Online Street Teams, which is basically a cyber version of our Community Grassroots Street Effort, reaching and contacting these folks daily, on a daily basis, to keep them energized, to keep them enthused, remind them of the issues at stake so they get to the polls on election day.

The other thing that you -- you know, before I go to the Nader question, is same day voter registration. Again, we've focused our, now, what used to be our Voter Registration Bus Tour and the Get Out the Vote Bus Tour on three key states and Florida: Iowa, which has early voting which started, I think, earlier this week; Minnesota and Wisconsin, which have same day voter registration. And again, just statistics show that young people respond very well to same day voter registration. So we feel this is a place where they're going to make a stand. They're going to turn out in big numbers, and so we want to help make that happen.

In terms of the Nader factor, it's interesting. I don't have a whole lot to say other than we really haven't seen Nader be of great interest to young people the way that I think he was in 2000.

I think that young people -- and I'm not saying that young people split into being Democratic or Republican. I think that at this point they really only see the race as between, you know, between the two major candidates. And also, it's the two major candidates that have made major appeals to them. You know, I think Nader's campaign, while, you know, he's been going to, you know, college campuses and doing, you know, those sorts of things, that only reaches a small breadth of young people. I mean, you know, again, that doesn't reach the people who are just about to -- who just turned 18, are about to go to school, or the people who have left school. So our -- we really haven't seen much of an impact yet amongst young people in -- I think he's been polling maybe slightly better than he's been doing nationally, but not much better.

MS. NISBET: Vladimir.

QUESTION: I'm Vladimir Lenskiy, Channel One, Russian TV.

What technique and what tactics work the best? Because some slogans like "Choose or Lose," "Vote or Die," sound kind of scary, you know, so what do you think about small organizations like the one called, "Votergasm" that asks young people to make a pledge not to have sex for four years for those who didn't vote?

MR. STRELL: Well, I think, you know, I think those are all -- look, I mean, I think the, you know, Rock the Vote is a nonpartisan organization and our appeal to young people may not necessarily appeal to all young people, frankly. There are some who probably think, "Hey, I'm too old for that or I'm too cool for that or I'm -- you know, I want something with more of an edge about, you know, I want something more partisan." You know, there's an organization out there, you know Punkvoter.com. But then there's a ConservativePunkVoter.com. So, they're really, you know, and then there's a, you know, a youth Christian rock, you know, voter outreach organization.

So, you know, I think that young people, you know, respond in different ways to different messages. For us, we feel, you know, the more the merrier because, you know, it's -- there's a lot of young people out there. And what our appeal is might work to some, might not work to others. And so if it takes a few like "Vote or Die" or, you know, "Choose or Lose," that's great, or, you know, "Votergasm," hey, that's, you know, we are also about free expression so, you know, we think it's, you know, the more the merrier.

QUESTION: Hi, my name is Amy Kommatas and I'm from TV Asahi, Japan.

And two questions: Can you talk about the swing states and how many voter -- new voter registration you have for the swing states? And then also, can you talk about -- I know that during the VMAs this year, at the very end there was this whole appeal for people to vote, and on MTV it's just a inundation, I think, kind of appeals with Rock the Vote, and do you worry that there's going to be an overload and that some voters might not appeal?

MR. STRELL: Let me start with that first. I don't think there's really going to be an overload. I think that, again, young people -- there's so much going on in young people's lives that you have to reach them. That's why I was saying that using pop culture is as a medium is just one way that Rock the Vote, you know, works at getting -- engaging young people, because we really want to make the message of, "Hey, there are serious stakes in this election. There are issues that are affecting you, and you want to know a way to get involved, you know, it's through your -- you know, your vote is your voice in this election."

And so, it's really to try to make the -- try to make the message ubiquitous to young people. Because, again, you know, they're hanging out on the Internet and they're on their cell phone. They're hanging out with their friends at concerts or malls, and so you've got to go to those places to reach them. And so, I think that's why -- I don't really think there will be a -- you know, a -- sort of an overload.

I mean, I think the worry sometimes is maybe they, you know, they have short attention spans. And so, I think it's important that you're in front of them as much as possible, and also for them to see the connection that, hey, you know, something that can be fun can also be serious as well and have a positive message.

In terms of the swing states question, I don't have the exact figures on this. I can say that, you know, we've had -- you know, we've had tremendous success in, you know, one of the states that we're going to, Wisconsin, I mean, our street teams there have registered over 50,000 people on the ground, which is just tremendous. And we've had a good -- you know, we've had a good impact in terms of our online voter registration as well. You know, it really varies from state to state. You know, again, we've registered about 1.4 million and counting, and we're going to be, you know, working to contact all of those people before Election Day to make sure that they do go to the polls.

One of the figures -- and I wanted to get back to what you had just said before was that young people -- in 2000, newly registered voters turned up at the polls at about 70 percent, which is a big figure. And so, you know, we feel that was -- you know, and again, I think if you contrast 2000 with 2004 and the level of engagement, I mean, I think that bodes very well with them showing up at the polls on election day.

QUESTION: Siu-Wai Cheung, Ta Kung Pao newspaper, Hong Kong.

I know Rock the Vote is non-partisan. But given the high stakes, everybody wants to know the political reality. I would like to know how you track, from your perspective, track the party or political preferences of these people you are targeting.

MR. STRELL: Yeah, we don't -- you know, again, we don’t break it out by whether -- you know, their voter registration by whether they're Democrat or Republican. I mean, again, we focus on just getting young people out to vote and register to vote. We do raise issues. You know, this has caused some consternation recently because we've been raising the issue of draft, which, you know, is a very serious issue for young people and what we're trying to do is, you know, create a dialogue on this, an open dialogue based on the facts and between the candidates, between the lawmakers, and unfortunately the issue has become politicized. And so, what is a very serious issue for young people, in terms of, you know, where our current and future military commitments are, has become, you know, just flat-out statements like, "No, this isn't going to happen," or, you know, "I have a plan," when nobody has really scrutinized it.

And so, what we would like to see is the candidates talk openly and honestly with young people about this because, you know, there are some very serious concerns when you look at our current military commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan, and then you listen to -- you know, in the first presidential debate, there was so much talk about Iran, what we may -- you know, may or may not do about Iran or North Korea. And then you square that with our following military -- you know, Army recruitment, you know, people start to get concerned.

So, you know, getting back to your question, I mean, we are a non-partisan organization and what we try to do is to appeal to young people to raise the issues, say, "Hey, look, these are the issues that are affecting you and that you've told us you're concerned about. You know, if you want to make a difference on those issues, you know, you need to look at the candidates and see who is best addressing and reaching out to you on these issues and then go and pull the lever who you think best addresses those issues."

QUESTION: Hi, I'm Pedro Ribero, from Portuguese newspaper Publico.

Filmmakers Matt Stone and Trey Parker, recently kind of mocked organizations like Rock the Vote, saying that if these people aren't interested enough to register themselves, why are we making an extra effort? Isn't it best if the uninformed don't vote at all? How would you respond to that?

MR. STRELL: I don't buy that argument and I think that's a -- you know, I mean, I have heard Andy Rooney make that argument. I think it's a, kind of a silly argument. I think that, you know, it's every American's right to vote and participate in the political process. I think, again -- I think what's important is for young people -- and what organizations like Rock the Vote do is to try to help young people understand that the role the role that they can play in this country.

I mean, one of the reasons why, you know, the seniors in this country have such tremendous sway and power is because they've been able to consistently get themselves to the polls and speak with a voice on the issues that are of concern to them and lawmakers listen to them. And there is no reason that young people can't do the same thing.

I mean, I think that's one of the tremendous things about the issue of the draft is, is that young have wanted to talk about this issue, and now that it's gotten pushed to the front of -- you know, it's one of the central -- it's one of the issues that's being talked about by the candidates. You know, the candidates are having to respond to the concerns of young people. That's what we're all about, is getting -- you know, getting them to address directly the issues that young people are concerned about because one of the problems that young people have is, "Well, I don't understand how this affects me sometimes." I, you know, and "How does -- you know, why does my vote matter?" And I think that's one of the questions that young people have. And I think what we're seeing in this election is is that you do have the candidates reaching out to them.

I don't really buy this sort of -- I think it's kind of almost like a, you know, a pseudo-intellectual, you know, cynical argument that, "Well, if, you know, if you can't get yourself to the polls that, you know, or you can't get yourself registered to vote, then you don't deserve to vote." I just, you know, I just don't buy that.

QUESTION: You just mentioned how they support gay marriage much more than the rest of the population. Are these moral issues also issues for them, like abortion, gay marriage or that kind of -- normally issues that the conservative have put on the table. How do they respond to them?

And also, you mentioned that 70 percent went out to vote last --

MR. STRELL: Of newly registered. I meant that of newly registered.

QUESTION: Newly. Okay.

MR. STRELL: Which means that they registered for the first time. If they were a young person and they had already been registered, they may not have necessarily turned out to vote.

QUESTION: And what was the young people turn out, in general?

MR. STRELL: I can't remember the percentage. I think it was in -- I think it was about 30; it was in the 30 percentile there. About 18 million of them turned out to vote in the 2000 election.

And then, I'm sorry, your first question?

QUESTION: The first question is about how do they react --

MR. STRELL: Oh, yeah. You know, what I think is really interesting about this generation is they're the most tolerant; they're the most diverse generation that this country has ever seen. And so, you know, the issues such as, you know, racial issues or issues such as is, you know, gender or, you know, religion or, you know, gay marriage, these are issues, to them, they don't see them in the same light that maybe their parents did. Again, I think that the figure is about 60/40 in favor of gay marriage. I mean, they see it -- they don't really see, you know, an issue with it because they may have friends who are gay. Or, you know, or, again, you know, issues such as affirmative action, they don't necessarily see a problem with this because, you know, they are just a much more tolerant and diverse generation than we have seen in this country.

And I think those are very interesting. I mean, you see it -- you know, you see it in the programming on, you know, on channels such as MTV where, you know, it's not uncommon for the shows to be racially, ethnically, sexually mixed. And so, you know, this is what they've grown up with. You know, I think, to them, the sort of the traditional problems that this country has had in these areas, they are sort of -- they're already moving beyond that.

QUESTION: I want to follow up Mercedes. Do you think that this is some kind of bellwether of their religion, attitude about religion and everything that comes in this country? We know that America is so deeply religious. Do you think the new generations will be less?

MR. STRELL: You know, I don't -- I don't really -- I can't really tell. I mean, I'll be honest. I don't really have any sort of -- I really wouldn't want to say one way or the other because I don't -- I haven't really -- we haven't really done a lot of research in that area. I think it's just, you know, as I said before, just to kind of go back to what I said before, I mean, this is just an incredibly diverse, you know, ethnically, sexually, racially diverse generation, and so some of these issues that have been, you know, wedge issues or whatever amongst the political parties in the past just don't have as much of an effect on young people because they just view them entirely in a different light.

Any other questions?

QUESTION: One quick one. Do you have any statistics on the percentage of voter registration by college students and people older than college students but have been to college and those who have never been to a college? Because college, the last year they get them more close to the political scene than people who graduate from high school and directly go to work?

MR. STRELL: Well, you know, one of the things I would -- there's two things. On our website, we did a poll that was released last July of first-time voters, of which obviously young people make the largest amount of. If you go on to the Rock the Vote website and you look under the media press releases, we have -- it's a poll that we did with Pace University here in New York on first-time voters.

I would look, in terms of the split between college educated and non college educated, you know, I don't really have any statistics off the top of my head. Where I would suggest that you look, though, would be at the Newsweek poll that just came out earlier this week or the Harvard Institute of Politics polls. They just -- their most recent poll, which I think was released in September or October, they did a survey of colleges and universities and attitudes there was. I think if you just go to iop.harvard.edu, you can check that out.

QUESTION: Yeah, I'm Kerry Sheridan from Voice of America. It seemed to me that in the '92 election, the issue of abortion was a lot more center stage in terms of young voters. Do you get the sense that in this election it's not being mentioned as much, that it is only kind of an extreme issue for young people, or is it something that they are still acting on?

MR. STRELL: You know, I think it's an issue that is of concern to some young people. I think that there are greater concerns that they have. I think in our research and that we have found that really the overriding concerns of young people in this election are the war in Iraq, you know, the economy, jobs, you know, paying for their rising costs of a higher education and health care.

You know, there are other issues that kind of come after that. I think abortion would be -- and gay marriage and the environment would be -- would fall into that category. You know, I think it's obviously it's a concern, but I think that its' -- there's just other issues, especially, you know, the war in Iraq is something that is really, you know, is something, if you go back to 2000, foreign policy, you know, much like the whole political campaign in general, wasn't really an issue for young people.

And jobs wasn't either because, you know, back in 2000, you know, you had a lot of young people who were, you know, instead of coming out of school wondering if they're going to find a job at all, or a good-paying job, you know, if you remember, we were still kind of coming out of the, you know, sort of the dot.com era there. There was a lot of, you know, hey, you know, do I even need to go get my MBA at this point when I can just go and start making my millions at a dot.com or something -- or at least that's what they thought.

You know, this generation, this year, you're seeing a lot more people come out. There's a lot of concern about finding a job coming out of school. And couple that with the fact that they just have a lot more student loan debt, and so, you know, the anxiety is even greater.

QUESTION: You might have mentioned it, I don't remember, but when you were talking about the youth vote, you're talking about people from 18 to --

MR. STRELL: Thirty years old.

QUESTION: To 30 years old?

MR. STRELL: Yeah, that's what we characterize as the youth vote in this country. You know, some people like to even narrow it down further to 18 to 24, but generally when we talk about the youth vote, it is 18 to 30.

QUESTION: I have one more question. It's hard for me to understand that you don't have any indication about, in this election, these young people are --

MR. STRELL: About what? I'm sorry.

QUESTION: About what -- the election these people are going --

MR. STRELL: It's just, again, there's a couple things. If you look at the polls out there, even, you know, you look at the New York Times-CBS poll that came out, I think on Monday, I think Kerry was up by 6 or 7 points, and then there was this Gen X poll where, among registered voters it was -- you know, his lead was very small, expanded when you had likely voters. But then you go back and you look at the Zogby poll last week and I think Bush was up by like 9 points. And there's a poll -- I can't remember which one it is -- that's on the college Republican site.

I think it might have been the ABC Washington Post poll, and Bush, again, was ahead amongst young people. So, it's still unclear kind of what direction they're going, whereas in 1992, it was very clear where -- you know, where young people preferences lied in that election.

Also, again, I just go back to it's hard to poll young people. They're not -- you know, they don't have home phones. You know, pollsters don't call cell phones. And so, it's still very difficult to get a consistent read on where they exactly are in this election. So, I think that's really the -- you know, it's a combination of sort of methodological, but also, you know, I think there is really -- you know, young people still haven't entirely made up their mind. So, you know, much like the rest of country, they're nearly divided.

You know, in 2000, I think -- you know, and again, I can't remember -- you know, it was just very close. I can't remember if Bush won or Gore won, but it was very close in terms of who captured more of the youth vote. And again, we're seeing -- we're not seeing a clear leader yet. But again, you know, traditionally, young people, you know, make their decision in terms of clueing in very late. And, you know, '92 was an exception, but they generally make their decision very late, and it seems to be that way this year as well.

MS. NISBET: I'm not sure if I missed that. On your website, do you actually have polling stats?

MR. STRELL: Yeah, we have a poll. There's a poll that we did with Pace, a Pace Rock the Vote poll. If you go under -- you look under our press releases, there is a section for media, and you go under that, you just go through and the poll came out at the end of July. We really strained the Democratic Convention, and we're going to be doing another one, hopefully, in about a week to 10 days. We're in the field right now to follow up, based on the debates.

QUESTION: (Inaudible)?

MR. STRELL: We have our street team leaders here that are still going out and doing, Get Out The Vote rallies. What you can do, if any of you want to, call the Rock the Vote offices here in New York, which is (212) 779-0500, x258, and just ask for my deputy, Kate, and she can give you the number for our street team leader in New York.

Additionally, if you're going to be traveling out to the swing states and you want to see what we're doing, or, you know, battleground states, or wherever you may be going, you can call us and find out if we have a street team leader in that area, and we'd be happy to hook you up with them and to tap into what they're doing on the ground.

QUESTION: Could you repeat that number?

MR. STRELL: Sure, (212) 779-0500, x258. We share offices with Camera Planet, so you'll hear that on the machine. Just don't be thrown off by that, just type in 258, and you'll get Kate, who will be happy to help you out.

MS. NISBET: I just want to thank you for working with Judy Jamison in coming here.

MR. STRELL: Yeah.

MS. NISBET: I really appreciate it. And the transcript should be up on the Foreign Press Center website, so just take a look maybe in the next day or so.

Thank you, Jay. Thanks much.

MR. STRELL: Sure.