thedesertsun.com: What will get those pesky kids to vote?

thedesertsun.comThe youth vote split evenly between George W. Bush and Al Gore in 2000. A recent Pew Research Center Poll showed Kerry leading Bush 56 percent to 41 percent among voters ages 18-29, but young voters are famously volatile; in three months the edge could shift.

Meanwhile, six nonpartisan groups are spending almost $40 million to get out the youth vote; Rock the Vote alone expects to have 25,000 voter-registration volunteers by fall. The New Voters Project plans to register more than 260,000 18- to 24-year-olds in six states, and to contact a half-million of them in the weeks before the election with a reminder to vote.

There are high school, Christian, hip-hop and punk-rock efforts. There’s a Web site for first-time voters -- VoterVirgin.com (Blog) -- and a new flavor of ice cream, Ben and Jerry’s "Primary Berry Graham." Michael Moore’s "Fahrenheit 9/11" is mobilizing people such as singer Mary J. Blige, who says she decided to vote after seeing the movie.

Polls indicate growing interest in politics and voting. A Harvard study found that 62 percent of college students say they plan to vote this year, compared with 50 percent with such intentions four years ago. In a Pew poll, 53 percent of registered voters ages 18-30 said they’d given "quite a bit of thought" to the election, compared with 35 percent in 2000.

Walking up Palm Canyon Drive in downtown Palm Springs, friends Lauren Fierro, 19, and Britney Hinthorne, 18, both said they would vote but were not sure which candidates or issues to base their votes on.

"I’m going to do my own research before (the election)," said Fierro, of Palm Springs.

"Yeah, I definitely need to know more about it before I vote," said Hinthorne, also of Palm Springs. "I want to make an educated decision."

USA TODAY
Trey Clark of The Desert Sun contributed to this report.