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Drinking Liberally Shot of Truth by Justin Krebs
Voter turnout in yesterday's New Hampshire primary surpassed previous totals. Without getting into how independents split, why polls were proven wrong or who out-maneuvered whom, we want to posit one factor (besides the warm weather) that boosted these numbers: peer pressure.
If you're monitoring techPresident's Facebook, Myspace and YouTube tallies, you know that web-based social networks are lighting up over the elections. If you follow the work of sites like Future Majority, you know that a major component to youth turn-out is peer-to-peer communication. If you attend chapters of Drinking Liberally, you know that people everywhere are talking politics and pulling each other to the polls.
Peer pressure works. That's what it's so scary in junior high school. And that's why it's so awesome in voter turnout (although sometimes scary again, depending on whom peers are pressured to vote for).
But as we all know, peer pressure works best when it's easy to give in to, and that's the real hero in the turnout story so far: Election Day Registration.
In both Iowa and New Hampshire, you can show up, register and vote...all at once!!! Inconceivable to folks like us in New York who have a labyrinthine calendar to determine when you need to register by. Efforts to pass EDR in places like Iowa (an initiative to which our friends at CREDO Action were integral) have made peer pressure easier...and that makes it work.
Say for example that somebody came to Drinking Liberally for the first time, and we told them they had to wait 3 weeks to have a drink. Doubtless, they would find other pursuits. But, when you make political participation as easy as buying a round, all the social networks, web 2.0 apps, and good old-fashion cajoling become that much more effective.
I feel bad for the unregistered New Yorkers who may feel the peer pressure to show up on February 5th, only to find at the polling station that they can't take the dive down the slippery slope of political engagement. At least, in their moment of dismay, they can still have a drink.
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