Still Rockin'. Two days ago was the deadline for California voter registrations. The final tally is in: 1500 people in one day used Rock the Vote's online voter registration tool to fill out their forms!

Political participation via mobile devices: Its an engagement tool that is still in its early stages here in the U.S. In 2004, Rock the Vote launched a groundbreaking mobile phone campaign that solicited more than 120,000 sign-ups across the country and helped register as many as 10,000 voters. My personal favorite element of the campaign was that on the night before the election, our subscribers recieved a voice mail instructing them how to locate their polling place through their phone.

Still, it was just a beginning. A new project in San Franscisco has just launched, called Mobile Voter, that shows promise.

The article about Mobile Voter notes that in other countries, mobile phone technology is credited with huge increases in participation. For example, in Spain, where a surge in youth voter turnout helped throw the incumbent party out of power, there were more than 40% more text messages sent on Election Day that normal.

But there are still a lot of unanswered questions about what would be most effective for voter and political engagement. What kind of services and tools would you want to have access to through your mobile device?

As we formulate our mobile campaigns for 2006 and 2008, we could use your input.

Check out Anya Kamanetz' blog. She wrote a bad piece on us during the election but we've forgiven her since, as she is spot on with most everything else! Her focus: the freaked-up economics of being young today.

Hooray for the Project on Student Debt!

Sorry for the radio silence everyone. But I'm baaaaack... with a little news on a project you should know about, the Project on Student Debt.

Everyone knows that the rising burden of student debt has become a crushing force in the lives of many young adults. Well, now there's a group of us trying to do something about it in a big way. Leadership is coming from this new group, the Project on Student Debt, with a lot of grassroots activity from students on the ground and at partner groups such as the Student PIRGS and US Student Association.

The new director of the project, Robert Shireman, is something of a legend, and he had the good sense to hire (without my input I should note) one of my family friends from growing up, Edie Irons. Nice job Bob! You, as we say over here, rock.

Anyway, the point here is this. During 2004, a lot of us set out to prove that you can increase the youth vote if you just have some basic resources. We were successful in that mission: you voted. Big time.

The next step in our campaign to build political power for young people is to fight it out on some key issues.

Rock the Vote has spent this year working on Social Security, one of the Administration's top priorities. Others are focusing more on student debt, where the goal is to make it a priority even if the politicians don't want to.

All of this fits together with trying to make the youth voice heard in our political system. There is a conspiracy in your favor under foot, and you can do your part to make it work.

So if you care about student debt issue, get involved today!