Eighteen-to-24-year-olds in Iowa and five other states are the target of a get-out-the-vote effort. The project’s been launched by the Iowa Public Interest Research Group, George Washington University, and a charitable foundation. Amber Hard, an Iowa-based spokesman for the project, says it’s a “non-partisan” effort. Hard says the goal is to increase voter participation among 18-to-24-year-olds by five percent. Hard says that means the project hopes to turnout just under 26-thousand young adults. Hard says they’ll focus on “peer-to-peer” contact. They’ll conduct get-out-the-vote campaigns in college fraternities, sororities and dormitories and have young volunteers canvas areas like apartment buildings where there’s a “high density” of young people, And Hard says they’ll work with existing organizations like churches, Y-M-C-As and other groups which serve young people to promote civic participation. The target for turnout is not the caucuses on January 19th, but the general election next November.Hard says youth are “up for grabs” in the next election, but she’s not sure which direction the young crowd will lean when it comes to party affiliation. Hard says they won’t focus at all on any party, but just on the act of voting.
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