Rock the Vote registers voters through Facebook

By David Kassis
The Collegian

With less than a month left until Election Day, the political organization Rock the Vote, along with the online social network Facebook, are making a strong push to get college-aged students registered to vote and out to the polls.

Rock the Vote, a nonpartisan political group for young people, announced that voters will be able to register through Facebook. The Web site has more than 9.5 million registered users and is the seventh most visited site in the country.

On the ballot next month are many important issues, including Proposition 1-D which would grant the California State University $690 million over two years, but the biggest draw will undoubtedly be the gubernatorial race between incumbent Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger and Democrat Phil Angelides.

Hans Riemer, 34, is the political director with Rock the Vote, and is excited with the possibility of getting more young people to vote through the popular Internet social network. “We had wanted to do a campaign with Facebook for a long time,” said Riemer, a graduate of the University of California at Santa Cruz. “It turned out there was a lot of interest for us to work together.”

But with just over four weeks remaining until Election Day, Riemer admits it might be too late to get a significant result this time around. “The problem is that we started a little late for voter registration,” Riemer said. “But the jury is still out, and there is tremendous potential to get young people to vote. We’re just trying to kick something off.”

In 2004 the Los Angeles-based Rock the Vote was able to register 1.4 million young people, 1.2 million of which were registered online. According to Riemer, the group is on pace to register 50,000 more since last spring.

“I think there is amazing potential for the future to get young people to vote because [Facebook] is where they spend a lot of their time,” Riemer said. “There are less people involved in 2006 because it is not a presidential election. We’re already gearing up for 2008.”

Obi Agbowo, a fourth-year political science major, is a registered Democrat who is looking forward to voting for the first time next month. “I think it is important to vote because the decisions of tomorrow could depend on today,” Agbowo said. “Not enough young people vote because we feel that the issues do not directly affect us.”

Although Agbowo is not familiar with Facebook, he thinks it is good that a social site would take interest in getting the college-aged out to vote. “I feel that the push being made is great because if we get enough of our votes together, we will really have a pull in the elections. It is our generation’s responsibility to get out there and learn about the changes being made through politics.” After he is finished with his bachelor’s degree at Fresno State, Agbowo plans to pursue a law degree, and maybe someday get into politics himself.

Riemer believes that “Generation Y” is increasingly politically active, and is on track to compose almost one-third of the electorate by the year 2015. “College students should be pissed off about financial aid or the war in Iraq,” Reimer said. “If those things don’t make them mad, I don’t know what will. It’s a good reason for them to get out there and vote.”

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