Many young voters participate in election

Andrea Taylor cast her first vote ever Tuesday, and was pretty pleased when the returns were tallied.

“Very good outcome: Jay Nixon and Barack Obama,” the 20-year-old said  Wednesday.

Taylor, a Warrensburg resident, was one of many voters who cast ballots for the first time.

Missouri had more than 340,000 new registrants, according to the Missouri Secretary of State’s office. Forty percent of those new voters were between 18 and 24.

In Pettis County, 816 of the 2,242 —  about 36 percent — of newly registered voters were 18 to 24 years old.

Taylor, a full-time State Fair Community College student, said she registered to vote in July so she could participate in a historic election.
“It changed history. It’s history in the making,” she said.

She cast her ballot for Democratic Sen. Barack Obama because of his views on health care.

“I think it’s exciting. He can change things,” she said.

Kimberly Trestler, 19, of Ionia, also cast her vote for Obama, although she said she wished New York Sen. Hilary Clinton had won the Democratic Party nomination.

The SFCC student also cited health care as her biggest issue.

“A lot of people complain about the president, but they don’t vote,” she said.

Fellow SFCC student Josh Hibbard, of Sedalia, expressed a similar sentiment about why he registered to vote.

“Everyone deserves to have their opinion be heard,” he said.

The 21-year-old missed being eligible to vote in 2004 by one month, he said. He registered to vote last summer. “I want to be a voting citizen, and this would be a good way to start,” he said.

He voted for Obama, but not because of his stance on any particular issue, he said.

“Mostly because I heard that McCain is more like Bush,” he said.

Warsaw resident Rick Daviss, 18, cast his first ballot for Libertarian Party candidate Bob Barr, a former Republican member of the House of Representatives from Georgia. He registered to vote in March.

“I voted third party because the major parties were too much alike,” he said.

The SFCC student said he was not surprised by the election’s outcome.

“I think more people were ready to have a black guy in office than a woman vice president,” he said.

Young voters were expected to have a big impact on Tuesday’s election.

Stephen Ansolabehere, a political science professor at Harvard and MIT, said young voters didn’t show up in the advertised wave, but others disagreed.

“Young voters have dispelled the notion of an apathetic generation and proved the pundits, reporters and political parties wrong by voting in record numbers today,” said Heather Smith, the executive director of Rock the Vote. “The millennial generation is making their mark on politics and shaping our future.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report.