From the archives: The Big Issue, 2004

Remember the dark days of Dubya winning his second term? I spoke to voters in the States in the lead up to that election, and although things are different for this 2010 UK election, the sense of frustration and political impotence that I got then feels depressingly resonant. We desperately need electoral reform in this country, not because our Big 2 are morally (not to mention fiscally) bankrupt (although they may be) but because, like America, we disenfranchise swathes of voters based on the lottery of postcode. Which is so dangerous.


America hanging in the balance
by Stef Macbeth
Published in The Big Issue, October 2004


At The Great Lakes Bar on Fifth Avenue, New York, Jim is getting ready for a busy night. "People will be getting pretty blitzed," he says. "The weekend starts on Thursday here." And will the presidential race be on everyone's lips tonight? "Yeah," he sighs, with almost as much enthusiasm as the talking clock. "People will be talking about it ? but only like they talk about anything else."

According to the 28-year-old barman at this student hangout, the atmosphere here is hardly one of election fever; more ambivalence. No one's too enamoured with John Kerry but at the same time they're pretty keen to get rid of George W Bush. "It's a case of the lesser of two evils," Jim says. You can hear the resignation in his voice. Will he be voting? "Yeah, I'll be voting. But then I always do."

While much of America's youth share Jim's cynicism for candidates at the upcoming presidential election in November, they don't all share the same desire to vote. In the 2000 election just 32 per cent of Americans aged 18-24 voted, the lowest figure since 18-year-olds were given the vote back in 1972 in a haze of student protest and mass political engagement.

But America's youth can swing this election. Or so believes a group of political activists currently touring the US in a bid to get young people voting. The League of Pissed Off Voters aims to engage disillusioned 17 to 35-year-olds in the democratic process. They are convinced they have a strategy that will translate such lofty claims into reality - and, crucially, votes.

On tour with their book, How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office - The Anti-Politics Unboring Guide To Power, the collective have made it their mission to convince young people that they truly can swing this election. The 2000 presidential election was decided by 537 votes in Florida, the book states. It also estimates there are five million progressives aged 17-35 whose votes would be enough to change their country's political landscape. Those two factors combined mean that in November young people - whether they know it or not - have the future of American politics in their hands.

"We are the voting mass - or at least we should be," says Adrienne Maree Brown, co-editor of the book and The League's programme manager. At 25, she is one of their older members. As she says, she's part of a powerful generation of young voters. Potentially.

"We're young - we aren't settled in our ways yet, we have passion and energy and firepower and mobility. We have the most at stake, it's our world, old people just live in it. Every single candidate should be courting the youth vote, asking us what we want."

Of course they have no reason to yet. But that's what The League is trying to change: "We're making ourselves the most important population to win for any candidate," says Brown, who first voted when she was 22, in the last national election. Her involvement with the book comes from the "disengaged what-difference-does-one-vote-make pissed-off young voter perspective."

The name may sound like a joke but The League of Pissed Off Voters is deadly serious, as serious as Brown's voice when she pointedly tells me that the only way that anyone can get away with stealing an election or committing election fraud is if the community aren't paying attention.

Ostensibly non-partisan, they are however pretty blatant about their first target: to get Bush out of office. It is all part of a bigger plan, says Brown: "the 'Get Bush out now' campaign motivates people to get involved but once people are engaged with it they realise there are so many other areas they can do good work in."

It's this fluidity between short-term policies and long-term aims that sets The League apart from nearly everyone else who's trying to woo young voters. Their campaign doesn’t end on election day.

According to Brown, their message is not falling on deaf ears. Features on The League have recently appeared in publications such as The Nation and The Village Voice - even though the group's small budget so far meant that a media campaign was out of the question. It is a sign the American public is starting to take notice. "People are so ready for this to exist," she says. "Something different and something truly long-term. So far, so good but we won’t know until after the election, of course."

Brown's sense that people are responding well and are engaging in a way that they didn't in 2000 is echoed by Khalilah Brown-Dean, a political scientist at Yale: "Not since the Civil Rights Movement have we seen such a concerted effort to strengthen the voice of young Americans. People are finally realising that young people in this country have the potential to significantly shape the outcome of this election."

Brown-Dean thinks that the reasons why young people haven't voted in the past are twofold. Part of it is that many young American's view politicians as an irrelevance and voting simply a waste of time.

"They have witnessed various candidates promise to advance the interests of young people, yet rarely see them follow through on those promises." She cites a survey carried out by Harvard University's Institute of Politics which found that 83.5 per cent of undergraduate students had not been contacted by any political party during the 2000 election campaign.

"In this regard, politicians need to do more to help young people understand how the process of politics governs every aspect of their lives. From deciding which brands of shoes are available in department stores because of trade policies, to determining the costs of higher education, the political process holds important implications for the future of our young people."

However, Brown-Dean does not think that a lack of understanding surrounding the political process amongst young people tells the full story.
"Many young people have realised that voting is not the only means of taking part in the political process. Young people in the US have an important history of involvement in other areas of participation including protest, civil disobedience and the use of counterculture to promote their political interests," she says.

"Rather than condemning them for their relatively low rate of turnout, we need to examine the institutional and societal barriers to their participation."

Much of The League's work is about bringing communities together. The rest is focused on getting those communities politically active and talking in a constructive way.

"We're not trying to reinvent the wheel," Brown continues. "A lot of the resources we need are already out there - it's just a case of finding them and making sure people are making use of them."

To do this they're using a cocktail of alternative methods - from mix-tapes to brunches - anything that might help democratise the language of politics and allow the whole community to take part in the debate.

On the website there are tips on how to make a Voter Guide, a non-partisan leaflet detailing what voters need to know about the candidates standing in their area. "Use your own language", it urges. "You don't need to sound like a boring-ass politician to write about one."

The issues being fought at this election are particularly resonant for young voters: same-sex marriages, US Foreign Policy and economic empowerment. Add to that 9/11, Iraq and Michael Moore and it's clear that people have a lot more to care about this time round.

The evidence out on the streets of New York seems to back this up. At the A1 Record store in the heart of New York's East Village, young scenesters flick through hip-hop promos. Jeremy, the store manager, like many young Americans, didn't vote in the 2000 election because he felt it "didn't concern him". But this time around he is in no doubt about whether to vote or not.

"If Bush gets re-elected he will destroy everything. He represents a tiny portion of America. I mean the guy's a dimwit. He's ignorant, he's stupid? Who wants a President like that?" he spits.

"He might have fooled some people last time but he won’t be able to do it again."

Brown, however, isn't relying on anger to swing this election. People need to be angry - and voting - to make a difference. "No one can document the number of people who are angry. By going out to vote it means that win or lose you always have a documentable number of how many people are dissatisfied with a government's policies?" she says.

"We're trying to get people to see that even if they don’t feel a duty to themselves to vote, they need to do it for all the people around the world who do not have the right to vote in our election yet have been affected by our country's policies. We have an international responsibility right now."