Youth Vote Helped Swing Polish Elections

The parliamentary election in Poland this past Sunday was a great example of how a political party can benefit from working the youth vote. The heavy defeat suffered by the conservative and strongly nationalist Kaczynski has been attributed to high turnout, especially amongst young voters.

Low turnout for the 2005 election helped give victory to Kaczynskis because its most loyal supporters made sure to vote.

This time around the opposition Civic Platform with its centrist and pro-European Civic Platform made a particular effort to target younger voters as did many non-partisan groups.

In the end, more than 50 percent of 18-24-year-olds voted, not far off the overall figure of 55 percent.

To check out some of the ways Polish youth were Rocking the Vote, click here and here.