ISO: Single Female Voters

Looks like unmarried women are among the "must-get" voters this election season, if efforts to get more of them to the polls are successful. That's a big "if."

I have to admit, I can't imagine not voting. Maybe that comes from being raised by parents who lived through the civil rights movement. So, I was a little surprised to learn that some 20 million unmarried women didn't vote in 2004.

"They are the fastest growing demographic group in this country," said Page Gardner, president of Women's Voices Women Vote, the group that produced the ad in the story linked to above.

"In 2004 they were 22 percent of the electorate yet there were still 20 million unmarried women who did not vote," she said. "If they voted in higher numbers ... they could literally help determine the agenda in this country.

Check out the rather humorous, somewhat titillating, ads produced by Women's Voices Women Vote (WVWV). According to their mission statement and FAQ, WVWV is a non-partisan group that doesn't endorse candidates or advocate specific issues, but just focuses on getting more unmarried women to vote.

There's some conventional wisdom as to which way the unmarried female demographic "breaks" politically, but the huge number of single women who abstained from voting before are something of a cipher. How they "break" if they get to the polls may depend on how successful candidates are at appealing to them.

Single women aren't the only group of people primed for political engagement this year. Judy Sheppard, Matthew Sheppard's mother, is touring college campuses to encourage young people to vote. And earlier this month a study came out showing that African American youth are very politically engaged and most likely to vote regularly.