RTV has come together very quickly. “We only started taking the first steps recently,” says Paddy Cosgrave, the group’s executive director. “We got in touch with some businessmen to see if they’d be able to help us out with a project like this, and there was a lot of interest, we were encouraged by that. We got some money and a little office space and we were away.”
It’s a first for Ireland, but there’s a long history of initiatives like this in the United States – which is where the idea came from. “I was influenced a lot by living in the States, where you couldn’t help but come across all the get-out-the-vote campaigns,” says Cosgrave. “We did a lot of research into campaigns to encourage voting by young people, looking at examples from all over the world to see what worked best.”
The original Rock The Vote campaign on the far side of the Atlantic has been active in US politics since the early 1990s. It was founded in 1990 and recruited Iggy Pop and the Red Hot Chilli Peppers for its first campaign, “Censorship is un-American”. RTV registered 350,000 voters for the 1992 presidential election.
The last US presidential campaign saw a massive push by RTV to mobilise the youth vote. Almost one and a half million people were added to the electoral roll thanks to its work – most of them used the RTV website to register. The fact that Rock The Vote came out of the election almost $700,000 in debt gives you some idea of the scale of its work. Celebrities from Ben Affleck to LL Cool J have been recruited for the cause.
Ireland’s Rock The Vote organisation is affiliated with the US campaign, but they hasn't reached the same level just yet. Eight full-time staff are working away in the RTV head office, trying to reverse a depressing trend in Irish elections.
According to a report published by the Democracy Commission, a body charged with taking the pulse of Ireland’s political system, the lack of engagement from young people is alarming. It estimates that just over 40% of 18-19 year olds voted in the last general election, while the figure for 20-24 year olds was not much better – 53%. It’s not all down to apathy, the Commission insists: “Of the young non-voters aged between 18-19, there is a large gap between those who did not vote because they were not registered (39%) and those who did not vote because they were not interested (25%).”
Voting experts make a distinction between “voluntary abstention” and “circumstantial abstention”: in other words, between people who have made a conscious choice not to vote, and people who were prevented from voting by factors beyond their control. They reckon a large chunk of the non-voting population would cast a ballot if it wasn’t for obstacles like week-day polling and problems with registration.
“We’re trying to help young people register to vote, so they don’t find themselves excluded,” says Paddy Cosgrave. “We also want to inform people more about politics. There’s a perception that voting isn’t important because it doesn’t make a difference. We want to let people know that even a small number of votes can change the result.”
One way of tackling “circumstantial abstention” is by getting young people onto the supplementary register. They can register up to 15 days before the election. The forms can be down-loaded from the RTV website – then it’s just a question of bringing them down to the local Garda station to be signed.
It’s also important for RTV to make face-to-face contact with their target audience. They’ve already staged a road-trip around Irish towns, hitting venues from Limerick to Letterkenny. “The roadtrip is about helping to give a voice to youth in this country,” says Cosgrave. “We’ve very deliberately chosen young and up-and-coming bands and singer-songwriters to come with us.”
Getting celebrities involved is another tool of the campaign. Rock The Vote videos will be launched in early May, with stars including Des Bishop and Dara O’Briain. The ads will be shown on Bebo, Youtube and MySpace, as well as on TV channels. The Internet is proving to be a great resource – the RTV Bebo page already has over 70,000 views.
According to Cosgrave, politicians have been very keen to help out. Fine Gael chief Enda Kenny helpfully posed with a guitar, along with Trevor Sargent of the Greens and SF’s Mary Lou McDonald (sadly, none of the politicians was prepared to bash out a few chords and warble a tune for the greater good). They’ve also been happy to provide information on policy matters for the mycandidate.ie website that’s been created by Rock The Vote’s team.
RTV will step up a gear once the election date is finally announced. Their research has established that the best time to launch a “get out and vote” campaign is roughly four weeks before the election – any sooner and the impact is diluted. Information packs with posters, flyers, t-shirts and other goodies are being sent to schools and colleges around the country.
Everyone involved in Rock The Vote is keen to emphasise the non-partisan nature of their work. They won’t be recommending a vote for this or that party: in fact, the Standards in Public Office Commission would shut down RTV if they started taking sides. Their only political stance is urging young people to exercise their right to vote.
As the RTV website puts it: “A generation of young people is becoming increasingly alienated from the decision-making processes that impact on their lives every single day and we want to change that. True, it’s a chicken and egg situation: young people don’t pay attention to politicians and politicians don’t pay attention to young people, and that’s the reason why our campaign is two-fold. We are encouraging young people to stand up and be heard and we are also encouraging politicians to stand up and listen.”
Paddy Cosgrave says the work done by Rock The Vote before this election is only a beginning. “I think this campaign is only going to start realising its full potential two or three years down the line,” he argues. “We’ve taken the first steps, and that’s important. We’re going to be in this for the long haul.”b