For years, the youth have been branded as an apathetic portion of the national electorate. However, this year’s election seeks to defy these stereotypes, as recent voting patterns indicate a surge in political awareness for the teenagers of today.

From the earlier caucuses to Super Tuesday, the nation’s youth is voting in historically large numbers. In fact, for most states, youth turnout has tripled — and even quadrupled — the turnout in 2000 and 2004.

In alignment with this trend, Vanderbilt’s nonpartisan organization Election Alliance ’08 is seeking to further promote awareness, education and enthusiasm for the 2008 presidential elections. This week Election Alliance is holding Voter-Palooza as a drive to register at least 1,000 new voters.

An online poll was sent out last week in order to get a better understanding of how Vanderbilt students voted. Out of the 1,074 responses, 88.9 percent of students stated they were already registered to vote, and of those, 30 percent were registered in Tennessee. Forty percent of the students who were not registered as Tennessee voters were interested in possibly changing their registration to Davidson County. Those who were not registered yet showed an overwhelming interest — 77.5 percent — in registering by the general election, and a third of those students responded that they might be interested in registering in Davidson Country.