I went to the University of Lincoln’s campus to talk to young voters and to get a vibe for the line and wait time.  The line to vote was about 2 hours long but that was not stopping more students to get in line! 

I thought I would also take a minute to share some critical information from one of my fellow young voter experts, Mike Connery.  There is a lot of information that is inaccurate when it comes to young voters, so here is the scoop:

Are young people registered?
Across the country, millions of young voters were added to the voter rolls in 2008. In critical states like Virginia, Nevada and Ohio, young voters (18 - 29) account for between 40 and 50% of all new voter registrations. The high registration rate is critical since in 2004, 81% of all registered young people voted.

Will young voters actually turnout?
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The infamous question we hear every year, will young people show up? The answer is yes and you can read lots of info on young voters over at www.futuremajority.com/press.

I will be twittering (janekleeb) and blogging all day for MTV's Street Team. You can read my posts over at MTV or if you are in NY you can actually read my twitters and the other Street Team members on a huge screen in Times Square...pretty cool.

I just got back from the polls with my two young daughters. I brought them with me to teach that voting helps create social change. I also brought them with me to start the habit of voting early. All the research tells us voting is a habit, so I want to start them early.

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Nebraska is high gear election mode—with visits from Obama and Palin the Cornhusker state is in play and every vote matters.

Above all else, registration matters since 81% of young people who were properly registered voted in 2004.  That is a huge number.  The downside is too many young people forget to change their address or don’t know some of the other nuts and bolts of voting.

Nebraska is one of the few states, according to Brennan’s Student Voting Rights Guide, where the voting process is very friendly towards college students.  Everything from a late voter registration deadline, to early voting, to easy residency requirements, Nebraska’s voter laws open the door for young people to make their vote count.

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Vise-grips.  They are a tool used around the world by carpenters, and those of us who think we are carpenters.  The original vise-grip was invented in Dewitt, Nebraska back in 1915.  DeWitt is a small town of about 600 people.  Half of the town works at the vise-grip plant.  The employees are proud of the tool they make.  The plant they work at is more like an extended home.  They share smiles and exchange stories of kids and grandkids. 

When you hold one of the vise-grips made at the plant in Dewitt, it is heavy, shiny and has a stamp on the handle “Made in the USA.”  You know holding it that it will last beyond your life.  It is the type of tool that gets handed down to your kids, it is that well made. 

Personal drama, celebrity personalities, legal trouble, rumors, crowd comparing, covers of weekly mags…we even have celebrity speak outs, most recently from Pink and Matt Damon who are making their opinions loud and clear that they are definitely Team Obama/Biden.

It’s as if we are in the middle of the newest reality show.  But alas, it is the election of the next President, which nearly everyone would say is the most powerful position in the world and just about every young person I talk to says this election is critical for their jobs and families. 

Young Voters Up for Grabs?

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Last night I had the opportunity to spend some needed quiet time, during all the madness of the convention, with Ted Sorenson (watch for the video of my time with Ted to show up in my Flixwagon button).

If you don’t know who Ted Sorenson is, he was JFK’s speechwriter but he was also one of his closest friends who traveled with him to every 50 state when JFK was still 39 and when he was still deciding if he would run for president.

The legend around Ted is that he is the one that coined the famous phrase “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.”

Ted is too humble and leads with a quiet center to ever take credit for that historic line.

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I made it to the Democratic Convention in Denver today from my hometown Hastings, Nebraska.  After getting settled in the hotel and figuring out where the convention hall was, I headed to our MTV Street Team briefing and to get our cool new phone that takes video live and posts right to this site.

Throughout the convention I am wearing a few hats—one is my Street Team hat where I will cover what is going in the youth voting community as well as cover my state’s delegation.  I also wear the hat of the DNC’s Youth Council Co-Chair —we have several offic...

Millions of us watched with awe this week at the grandeur of the Olympics’ opening ceremonies in China.  The beauty of the people.  The precision of the drums.  The surprise of young people popping out of boxes that seconds before were bobbing up and down as if they were operated by a computer.  And of course the traditional lighting of the Olympic flame.

Even as I watched all of the beauty of the ceremonies, in the back of my mind all I could think about was the atrocious human rights record of China.  Citizens can’t freely talk about politics online or offline.   There are government sanctioned places of worship.  Workers can be fired at will and overworked without compensation.  Environmental standards simply don’t exist. 

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It's rodeo season in Nebraska.  Jake is a young cowboy who travels rodeo to rodeo trying to make a living and seeking a little bit of glory along the way.  While politics is not the main topic of conversation for folks in the rodeo community, it definitely does come up, especially this year.  Come listen to Jake and see what issues he is voting on this November while catching a glimpse of what it’s like to live on the rodeo road.

Last week I attended Netroots Nation, an annual conference of progressive bloggers and organizations. Conventional wisdom says bloggers are crazy, evil doers and sit in the basement with their pajamas on never leaving the house and never talking to real people.

I didn’t meet one blogger with horns, not one that hates America or hates conservatives for that matter and they were all fully dressed (thank gawd).  All of the bloggers at the convention were a bunch of regular people who found their voice and activism online instead of offline like in the 60s. 

Now, that is not to say a bunch of bloggers don’t also do activism offline.  In fact, the bloggers had a whole event creating care packages for soldiers.  I asked a young candidate Jon Powers, who is also an Iraq Vet, what he thought about the care packages and about young voters:

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