Young voter turnout key to outcomes

Harris Parnell, state director for the Maine League of Young Voters, sees Tuesday's election as more than just another off-year crop of referendum questions. For her generation, it's a turning point.

"I think people are getting the message that it's not enough to just care about these issues," Parnell said last week. "You have to get out and vote."

She's talking about the two hot buttons on this week's ballot – the repeal of Maine's same-sex marriage statute and the proposed Taxpayer Bill of Rights. Both have long-term implications for Maine's very identity – hence both, Parnell says, are front and center on the mind of the ever-unpredictable young voter.

From where Parnell sits, there's little mystery to which way those between the ages of 18 and 29 will lean come Tuesday – the younger the voter, she predicts, the more likely you are to see "no" votes on both Question 1 (the repeal of same-sex marriage) and Question 4 (the so-called TABOR II initiative).

The yet-to-be-answered question: How many young voters actually will turn out? And thus, with Questions 1 and 4 both hinging on turnout, to what extent will they claim this election as their own?

Consider the numbers.

Three times in the last 14 years, Maine has voted in off-year elections on referendums involving equal rights for gays and lesbians.

Back in 1995, when Carolyn Cosby and Concerned Maine Families tried to exclude sexual orientation as a basis for equal rights protection at both the state and local levels, just over 44 percent of the Maine electorate cast ballots. The measure was defeated soundly by a 6.5 percentage point majority.

Three years later, when Michael Heath and the Christian Civic League of Maine tried to overturn Maine's first statewide law ensuring equal rights for gays and lesbians, only 31 percent of Maine's voters bothered to show up for the special February election. This time, the repeal passed with a 2.5 percentage point edge.

Fast-forward to the special election of 2005, when yet another people's veto of yet another equal rights statute made its way to the ballot. The turnout once again exceeded 40 percent (barely). And once again, the equal rights side prevailed – this time by a whopping 10.3 percentage points.

Bottom line: The more Mainers turn out in special elections on matters involving equal rights for gays and lesbians, the more favorable the outcome for Maine's gays and lesbians.

"Generally speaking, it's only the most committed voters who vote in what I call an 'off-off year' election" where there are no major candidate races on the ballot, said Mark Brewer, a political science professor at the University of Maine, in an interview last week.

Hence the key to victory, Brewer added, is to reach beyond your hard-core base and "convince voters who might support you that it's time to turn out."

Which brings us back to the young voter.

According to the league's Parnell, same-sex marriage and TABOR II have both touched nerves this fall among young voters who grasp the long-term implications of each issue.

Passage of TABOR II, Parnell said, would only "make tough times tougher – and that burden is really going to be falling onto our shoulders."

And the effort to overturn same-sex marriage?

"It's our generation's civil rights moment," she replied.

Indeed. A 2004 survey of 15- to 25-year-olds by the Tufts University's Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement found that 56 percent favored same-sex marriage, while only 39 percent opposed it.

CIRCLE Director Peter Levine said Friday that gap not only continues to widen, but holds firm as each generation grows older.

"I think what will happen is, as the young folks replace the old folks, it will just become a closed issue," Levine said.

A similar note was struck last month by Public Policy Polling,...

a North Carolina firm that surveyed 1,130 likely Maine voters on Question 1. The poll showed that while voters 65 and older strongly oppose Maine's same-sex marriage law, those between 18 and 29 support it.

"Senior citizens can often dominate the electorate in low-turnout elections," the firm noted, "so the ultimate fate of this measure may lie in how many younger people get out to the polls and vote."

Asked last week what he expects for a turnout on Tuesday, Secretary of State Matt Dunlap replied, "Fifty percent or 20 percent would surprise me. I'd be stunned if it was that high or that low."

Based on absentee ballot returns – just under 90,000 had come in by Thursday, compared to 150,000 in last year's presidential election – Dunlap said he expects a turnout somewhere near the 35 percent to 40 percent range.

The University of Maine's Brewer, who's surrounded by young voters every day, predicts substantially higher overall numbers – maybe as high as 50 percent or 60 percent.

"Same-sex marriage is not your average ballot initiative," noted Brewer. And while TABOR II might be a "distant second" on this fall's ballot, he added, it's still a "high-profile" question that will undoubtedly drive many to the polls.

Back at the League of Young Voters, where the get-out-the-vote operation is now in overdrive, Parnell sees good things happening come Tuesday.

"I think we'll have a big impact on this election," Parnell said. "Young people are really energized."

As well they should be.