Those energized young voters

They were surprised down at the Secretary of State's Office that younger voters stayed away en masse from the August primary. They shouldn't be: Younger voters are out there and ready to participate in November. But the August primary was as dull as the gray light of winter. The presidential election is an altogether different proposition. Younger voters are smart enough and pumped enough to show up for the main event.

Thousands of new young voters will come out and make a difference, especially in this state. They will vote in large numbers for Sen. Barack Obama. The bigger question is, will they hang in there long enough to vote for either Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire or Dino "Don't Call Me a Republican" Rossi or other races down ballot, such as billions of dollars for Sound Transit or millions of dollars for the Pike Place Market and new parks in Seattle.

Fewer than one in five young voters, ages 18 to 34, bothered to take their iPod earbuds out long enough and commit the caloric effort to vote in August. But don't get excited. This will be a banner year for younger voters. The August primary, even though it included a dry run of the very close Washington's governor's race, amounted to a jolly snooze.

The vote on the governor's race didn't count. The ballot lacked an intraparty food fight, such as the one between Democrats Rom Sims and Gregoire four years ago.

Even perfect voters who tend to be older found it hard in those lazy days of August to lick the stamp or get off the couch long enough to vote.

The presidential race is different. Some younger voters will want to come out just to tell Sen. John McCain they think he is a world-class weenie for playing politics with the long-scheduled presidential debate.

Our country saw a significant spike in participation among younger voters from 2000 to 2004. This year, the interest is expected to be higher — more than 2004 and perhaps more than ever. Evidence lies in exit polling that showed sizable numbers of young voters participating in presidential primaries and caucuses across the country.

Younger voters are busy, no-nonsense. They will show up for the big moment, as they did for the Washington caucuses and the rock-star Obama speech in February at KeyArena.

A more peripheral event, like the local August primary, did nothing to spark their interest.

"Any time you have a low-stimulus election, young voters do even worse," explained Scott Keeter, director of survey research for the Pew Research Center. He predicts big young-voter turnout in November."I don't think you can take the experience of a sleepy primary as evidence of what voters are going to do in November."

Keeter noted that in presidential primary after primary, the percentage of participation, especially among Democratic voters ages 18 to 29, was higher in almost every comparison to 2004.

Those energized young voters are not going to forget how they feel and go home and skateboard.

Pew polling shows a high level of engagement among young people — as high or higher than any time in the research group's history, dating back to 1992.

So psshaw to the secretary of state and his August primary.

People under 30 don't vote in large part because they don't connect politics or government to their lives, explained Todd Donovan, political science professor at Western Washington University. You can make it as easy as possible for them to vote, but there has to be a "pull" factor.

Watching King County officials project voter turnout in August convinced me of this. Before the primary, King County predicted 45-percent turnout, based on previous participation and similarly sized primaries. But only 35 percent of registered voters showed up. I suspect younger voters in the mix received their ballots in the mail, did not see Obama's name and dumped the paperwork in the recycling bin.

According to the secretary of state, 88,600 new voters registered statewide in the past four months, about 27,000 of whom are 18 to 24.

The gubernatorial candidates ought to offer something in upcoming debates and ads that matters to younger voters, something that connects, or many of them will cast ballots heavily in favor of Obama and then dash off to their next activity.

Joni Balter's column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. Her e-mail address is jbalter@seattletimes.com; for a podcast Q&A with the author, go to www.seattletimes.com/edcetera