Actors urge youth to vote in elections

Actors Kal Penn and Kerry Washington urged young people to vote in the Nov. 2 elections. The actors, along with Kamala Harris, the democratic nominee for California attorney general, stressed the importance of the youth vote and the power of student-led political movements.

“Every important and major movement can be tracked in this country to its young people and students,” said Harris, who is currently San Francisco’s district attorney. “We want to encourage students to understand their power.”

If elected, Harris would be the first African American attorney general in California.

Harris stressed the imminence and importance of current issues on the ballot. Environmental issues, gay marriage and health care are topics Harris said the younger generation can solve.

“Understanding the importance of the race and the imminence of all of these issues in terms of impact on our lives,” Harris said. “What we want to do is encourage students to organize as they have done before.”

Harris, Penn and Washington want to dispel the myth that the number of students that voted in the 2008 presidential election was not a fluke.

“It drives me crazy because everyone is doubting our voice,” said Washington, who plays Kelly in the upcoming movie For Colored Girls.“We have to show up to the polls to make sure that our numbers are heard, that people know that we still care, that we understand that a representational democracy can only represent us when our voices are heard.”

In 2007, a large student population was responsible for the grassroots movement of the Obama campaign.

“This signifies that young people were moving the country forward,” said Penn, who left his role as Dr. Kutner on Fox’s drama, House, M.D. to join the Obama administration as a political activist.

Penn and Harris joined campaigners in Des Moines, Iowa, and went door-to-door to ask people to vote for Barack Obama, a then unknown senator from Illinois.

“Everything from city college students, high school students, university students, graduate students… people who have never been involved in a campaign, a lot of whom have never voted,” joined the Obama campaign, Harris said. “What was happening was just a part of the creation of a movement.”

Harris hopes students will channel a similar movement in the upcoming state elections by using social media to promote candidates and spread information regarding propositions.

“Do not underestimate the power of what you guys can do in your own community as students,” Harris said.

Written with Erin Bradley.

Originally published in the Daily Titan on October 28, 2010.