An estimated 10 million Americans under the age of 30 cast their votes in Tuesday's mid-term elections, 2 million more than in 2002.

High voting rates on Penn's campus reflected this trend.

According to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, which studies voting among the young and reported these preliminary data, youth voting increased by 4 percentage points from the previous mid-term election.

This follows a trend from 2004, when youth voter turnout was up 9 percentage points from the previous presidential race.

Penn's campus, however, saw an even more marked increase.

The six voting districts located on campus - which served primarily students - recorded 1,521 votes on Tuesday, whereas only 509 students voted at campus locations in 2002.

There are no data available for students living off-campus or those casting absentee ballots.

One factor in the increase from 2002 may be the addition of four polling places to campus since then. Students petitioned city officials for the increase, bringing the total number of locations to six.

According to Political Science professor Jack Nagel, there were many issues that compelled students to the polls, including anger at President Bush, an important Senate race and Penn alumnus Ed Rendell's re-election bid for governor of Pennsylvania.

"You need motivation and mobilization," Nagel said. "You need people encouraging, directing students where to vote, providing information, and the efforts to mobilize have really improved recently."

Bren Darrow, a senior in the College and president of Penn Leads the Vote, which worked on campus to mobilize students, agreed with Nagel, but added that the increased turnout is at least partly due to student leadership.

"More voting is caused by students reaching out to each other, not from, say, professors or parents," Darrow said. "It's about infiltrating the youth culture, where your friends are asking, 'Did you vote yet?' all day."

"Voting's a habit," said Joseph Tierney, Fox Leadership's executive director. "It's important that people [get] involved early, and it's the greatest demonstration of leadership to be involved in the political process."

Darrow says that it's important for young people to vote as a means of emphasizing the priorities and concerns of the 18-to-29 demographic.

"You're never going to cast the deciding vote because elections aren't won by a single vote, so it's silly to think about it that way" Darrow said. "Voting together as a community has a large effect, and that's why issues of health care are on the ballot and not college tuition, because senior citizens vote in large numbers and the youth haven't, but this election sends the message that Penn's campus is engaged, so hopefully we can change that."