Death threats and offers of underwear and Ramen noodles did not cause a huge increase in voter turnout among young people this year.

Last Tuesday voter turnout of people between 18 and 30 increased by 4.6 million from 2000, according to Cate Brandon, spokesperson for the Rock the Vote project.

John McAdams, Marquette associate professor of political science, said the increase was proportional to the voter increases in other age groups.

"It appears to be another media fad that was unjustified by the facts," McAdams said.

Many groups had targeted the demographic, from Michael Moore, who offered people underwear and noodles in exchange for their pledge to vote, to P. Diddy, whose Citizen Change movement used the T-shirt slogan "Vote or Die."

"I think it shows that young people were engaged with this election, and they showed up on Tuesday and made their voices heard," Brandon said.

In 2000, 5,083 people in the wards where Marquette students voted, according to the Elections Commission. Tuesday, 7,581 turned out to vote. It is an increase of just under 2,500 votes.

"As far as I know we had a pretty good turnout," said Anna Schultz, a campaign coordinator for the New Voters Project and a sophomore in the College of Arts & Sciences. "At least on Marquette's campus it's made a big difference."

Brandon said Rock the Vote had met all three of its goals, which were to register 1 million people, get 20 million voters to the polls and make the politicians talk to the younger demographics. They registered just under 1.5 million people, and at least 20.9 million voters went to the polls, a number that will probably increase after the provisional and absentee ballots are counted, Brandon said.

"Young people are what made this election so close," Brandon said. "I think the reason we were up so late waiting for Ohio was because young people turned up, and they will continue to turn up and make their voices heard."

McAdams said he thought the youth voter turnout would tick down slightly in 2008, but not to the level it was at in 2000.

"The increase overall should persist to a degree," McAdams said. "I do think this will be sort of a — although not radical — continuing and perpetuating trend in turnout."

Schultz said the turnout will make a difference in future elections.

"I think that (politicians) have acknowledged that youth voter turnout has increased," Schultz said. "They will be more likely to listen to what the young voters have to say."

Young voters favored Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry (Mass.) over President Bush, with 54 percent going for Kerry and 44 percent supporting the president.

At Marquette, every ward voted for Kerry, who won the area by 2,361 votes, up from the 863 votes Democrat Al Gore won by four years ago. In the 2000 election Bush won two of the eight wards.

Graduate student Aimee LaBlonde in the College of Business Administration voted downtown.

"I thought (the students) seemed to care," LaBlonde said.

Annie Schumacher, a freshman in the College of Arts & Sciences, voted in her hometown of Greenfield.

"Where I voted there weren't many young people," Schumacher said. "I think that maybe the celebrities that tried to do all the pushing to get the young people don't have as much input as they thought they did."