Seventeen percent of the ballots cast in Tuesday’s election were by voters ages 18-29. Seventeen percent. This was not the expected banner year for youth voter turnout. Across the nation right now, politically active young people, whether Democrat or Republican, are mourning together our repeated failure to take up our demographic’s latent power. There are nearly 59 million United States citizens between the ages of 20 and 30, so why did only 35 percent of us exercise our constitutional rights on Tuesday?

Youth voters and their issues have historically been ignored by candidates for exactly this reason. Politicians cannot be expected to listen to us when we seemingly have nothing to say. At Harvard, where nearly everyone is presumably more politically aware than the average 20 year-old, it is easy to forget that not everyone campaigns in New Hampshire on the weekends; not everyone reads the New York Times election coverage daily; and not everyone understands the mysterious workings of the Electoral College. But the exit polls from Tuesday reminded us sharply of just how disconnected most of our peers are from their own government.

The low youth voter turnout makes absolutely no sense considering that young people had the most at stake in this election. Senior citizens and Baby Boomers vote in droves, but they won’t be the ones ultimately most affected by Tuesday’s implications. The scope of the issues directly relating to youth that the president will have to address over the next four years is staggering. There are four Supreme Court Justices over the age of 70 currently serving on the court. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist is severely ailing and may resign within the year. The conservative justices President Bush will now almost certainly appoint will begin to build a conservative majority that could reverse the steps taken in Roe v. Wade, in affirmative action cases and in Title IX cases. This country is also currently fighting a war in which many young Americans have sacrificed their lives and about which many young people have expressed strong opinions. These are solely our generation’s issues: young women have the option of abortion, young students are affected by affirmative action and Title IX and young soldiers are fighting in Iraq.

Tuesday’s election was crucial for the youth voter, and we failed to meet the challenge. Hope springs eternal, however, while media and pop culture still do their part to encourage us to get out and vote. In four years, when P. Diddy again threatens to kill you for not voting and MTV interrupts the “Real World” broadcast to play “Rock the Vote” commercials, appreciate the effort. Think about why your friends don’t vote and about why this specifically targeted advertising isn’t working. Talk to your friends and figure out why they’re apathetic. Encourage them, berate them, coax them, bribe them, drag them to the polls kicking and screaming, just make them realize the importance of voting.

Together, we can be heard. We can make a difference in our own futures. Left or right, black or white, rich or poor, in 2008 we must remember: the voice of the youth voter matters.

Sarah J. Culver ’07, a Crimson editorial comper, is an English concentrator in Eliot House.