Young voter registration is cause for uncertainty in presidential race

CHICAGO -- Tammy Hsu is one of those 20-something voters who can drive a presidential candidate crazy.

She registered to vote during the recent Illinois "grace period" and cast an early vote in her state's Super Tuesday primary. But she's still not completely sold on any candidate, not even Barack Obama, the home-state Democrat widely depicted as the choice of young voters.

Nor is she committed to a political party.

"I don't want to associate myself with a party because I learn something new every day. I try to make an educated decision," said Hsu, a 23-year-old theater worker from Chicago. She didn't reveal how she voted for in the primary and still considers herself undecided for the general election.

With young voter registration rising and a strong independent streak among them, there are a lot more people like Hsu out there.

"Political professionals haven't liked dealing with them. They'd rather not deal with the wild card -- but in a very close election, you need to play your wild cards," said Peter Levine, director of the University of Maryland's Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement, also known as CIRCLE.

His organization has tracked the marked increase in young voter participation in the 2004 and 2006 elections and -- as recent exit polls for The Associated Press and TV networks have shown -- in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. CIRCLE also has compiled a new study of young voters with Rock the Vote, one of the more widely known get-out-the-vote organizations that targets young people.

The study found that increased voter participation extends beyond college students to young people from many walks of life -- working to unemployed, Asian American to Hispanic. Rock the Vote organizers also say the interest extends to states with upcoming primaries and caucuses, with a significant increase in young voters downloading registration forms online, compared with this time in 2004.

An AP analysis of registration records in Florida, which held its primary Tuesday, and California, one of the many states voting Feb. 5, found that the percentages of 18- to 29-year-old registered voters have already equaled young voter percentages at the time of the November 2004 presidential election.

As of late 2007, nearly 2.6 million Californians in the 18- to 29-year-old range were registered, representing 16.5 percent of all voters. Overall, that age group makes up about a third of the state's population.

In Florida, 1.8 million 18- to 29-year-olds had registered by that time, representing about 15 percent of registered voters. About a quarter that state's population falls into that age bracket.

Experts who track young voters say that puts those states, and likely others, on track to surpass 2004 registrations. But whether that will produce actual votes remains to be seen.

There are those who are skeptical. Some think young voters were motivated four years ago by a strong dislike of George W. Bush: They were the only age group with a majority who backed losing candidate John Kerry.

"I don't think they will turn out at the same rate that they did in 2004, partly because George Bush isn't running, but that's just reading early tea leaves," said Curtis Gans, director of American University's Center for the Study of the American Electorate. "It's just too early to tell what they'll do."

John Della Volpe, director of polling at Harvard University's Institute of Politics, has witnessed the shift from the days when young people thought their vote didn't matter.

Overall, he's seen Democrats making the biggest play for young voters. Obama, who hired a national youth vote director last spring, was among the first. Other candidates have stepped up their efforts recently.