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The San Gabriel Valley Tribune featured my Young Voter Project in a recent article on how Young Adults can make a difference
at the polls . . . excerpts from Editor, Steve Scauzillo's column. . . Case of vote or be slashed?
SOME say you can tell whose ox gets gored in the governor's proposed budget by one simple factor:
voting. College students at the CSUs and UCS, for example, got mauled with about $660 million in cutbacks and a 14 percent
increase in undergraduate tuition. And we all know they don't vote. . .
For students and nonstudents aged 18-25, their voice is being muffled by underuse. In a recent
survey, a clear majority of youthful respondents described voting as "a choice,' ahead of "a right,' and trailing badly with
less than 10 percent was "a duty.' . . and many are choosing not to vote.
Locally, Covina City Clerk Rosie Fabian watched the voting participation numbers plummet from 14,000
votes cast in the governor's recall election in October, to 1,800 in the school board elections the following month. "What
happened to all those people who voted about a month ago?' she asked.
Fabian decided to go after the youth. She crafted a three-year plan to register more 18-year- olds
and give them the tools to vote. "I figured, those who can get started (voting) for the first time, they can develop good
habits. Adults have already formed habits.'
She handed out buttons and literature from Rock The Vote and the East San Gabriel Valley League
of Women Voters at Charter Oak High School in Covina March 26 and April 21, and at Northview High School April 1. She is planning
to host a booth at Covina High School this month. She spread the word that anyone who turns 18 by Nov. 2 can vote in
the presidential election.
"They see this as another step. There's graduation, going to college, it is a rite of passage as
they come into adulthood,' Fabian said. Of course, not every student is embracing Fabian's stages-of-life reasoning and heading
for the polls in November. . . ."
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