Washington, DC ? An estimated ten million young Americans under the age of 30 voted in Tuesday?s midterm elections, an increase of at least two million compared to 2002, according to exit polls and early published tallies of votes that are likely to increase as additional precincts and ballots are included. The preliminary data were analyzed by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), which is the nation?s premier research organization on the civic and political engagement of young Americans.

The estimated youth turnout rate or percentage of young eligible voters who cast votes also jumped from 20% in 2002 to at least 24% in 2006, an increase of at least four percentage points. Voters under the age of 30 accounted for 13% of all voters, which is an increase of about 2 points compared to the 2002 midterm elections.

?This is an extraordinary turnout for young voters,? said CIRCLE Director Peter Levine. ?In a year of rising turnout, young people led the way?repeating the pattern that we saw in 2004. Youth were an especially high proportion of voters in Montana, Michigan, Minnesota, and Missouri. Nationwide, in House races, 61% of young people voted for Democratic candidates–the highest proportion for any age group.?

For more, visit CIRCLE.

Based on the national exit poll and some simple math, it appears that voters went for the Democrats over the Republicans in all U.S. House races by 54.6% versus 44%–which should translate into substantial gains for the Dems. For the Democrats, by far the strongest group was the under-30s: 61% versus 37%.

This is the place to come to find out how (and whether) young people vote. CIRCLE calculates the youth turnout after each national election, and we’ll put estimates on the CIRCLE site as soon as we can tomorrow morning. I will then comment here.

We calculate youth turnout by starting with the national exit polls’ estimate of the proportion of voters who were young, multiplying by state election officials’ count of all the ballots counted as of Nov. 8, and dividing by the Census Bureau’s estimate of the number of American residents who are young adults. The result is just an estimate, but that’s all we can ever have when we look at turnout by demographic groups. Besides, in past years, this method has closely tracked the results of Census’ November current population survey, which is the only alternative source.

Getting the news out was important in ’04. As many readers of this blog know, the Associated Press misreported the turnout statistics last time. The AP reporter looked only at the percentage of voters who were young and concluded that youth turnout had fallen, when in fact it had surged by 11 points in a banner year for participation. I called her but she resisted my entreaties. DailyKos and other bloggers picked up the AP story as an explanation of Kerry’s defeat. (Young people were supposed to turn out for Kerry; Kerry lost; ergo, young people must have stayed home. Which was bad logic, since Kerry’s brightest news was his strong support from under-30s.)

Once the AP and the blogosphere had the wrong story, it built on itself. I watched a TV reporter ask a political scientist who shall remain nameless, “Why do you think the youth vote fizzled?” He replied with a long explanation about low trust in government, apathy, ignorance, blah, and blah. That story teaches a lesson about not accepting the factual premises of reporters’ questions unless you know them to be true.

This year, I am somewhat worried that any real positive news about youth turnout will be mangled again, because reporters will compare ’06 to ’04 (which is unfair) or will again be confused by the difference between youth turnout and youth voters as a share of all voters. Still, we’ve done our best with press releases and advisories and are willing to stay up all night to obtain vote tallies so we can have a turnout estimate on our site ASAP tomorrow. Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, we have detailed historical data on youth voting, including graphs for each state, here.

This is a working form that collects real stories of problems at the polls. To put the same gizmo on your site, please visit VoterStory.org.

Here’s an observation about networks. Some people know a lot of others within a field or community and are very widely liked. It is difficult to criticize anything they do or say, either in their company or behind their backs, because the odds are high that others present will like them and be biased in their favor. On the other hand, some people have made lots of enemies within a network. It is difficult to praise any of their work behind their backs, because other people tend to be biased against them.

Reputation is self-reinforcing–and more so in tightly woven networks. People who are liked and admired generate praise even when they are not present–and even when their actual work doesn’t merit support. People who are widely disliked do not get the credit they deserve; they never fare well in conversations that occur out of their hearing.

There is a huge literature on social networks–even a specialized blog. I’ll bet that literature includes studies of the pattern I mention here. In any event, smart activists understand it instinctively and work every day to bolster their reputations.