The youth vote could count more than ever before when it comes to the Nov. 7 midterm elections.

The closeness of the election race has led politicians to focus their campaign efforts on 18- to 29-year-olds, which currently make up a quarter of the U.S. electorate, Tina Post the communications director for New Voters Project, said.

Politicians have started using YouTube, MySpace and Facebook Web sites for recruiting volunteers and spreading the word about their campaigns to youth voters.

"Politicians are finally paying attention to young people and respecting them," Post said. "The thing that's really interesting though is the new ways they're going about campaigning to the youth."

Post said the current generation Y, which she also referred to as the MySpace Generation, is a generation that is more politically oriented, and for those reasons candidates are targeting them on their favorite Web sites.

"Hard evidence has shown that young voters today are much different than young voters a few years ago," Post said.

Daniel Michelson-Horowitz (senior-biochemistry), the media relations and outreach coordinator of Represent Penn State, said politicians are using youth Web sites to reach voters that normally wouldn't watch a debate on TV.

"We all browse Facebook and, even if we spend five minutes reading a politician's profile, that's still where we're getting our information," Michelson-Horowitz said. "I think it's effective."

While the increased interest in youth issues from politicians is a step in the right direction, College Democrats spokesman Eliot Schmidt said the election results will be the ultimate indicator of how effective online campaigning is.

"Traditionally we haven't turned out to the polls like other voting blocks have, so we'll see after the election, based on the turnout, how effective this new campaigning is," Schmidt said.

"The fact that we are a large market doesn't just help politicians, though, it also helps us as students because it gets our important issues recognized."

Online campaigning can also have its advantages for politicians, some say, because it's a very inexpensive way to advertise.

"It breaks with traditional methods because creating a Facebook profile doesn't cost the money it would for a 30-second spot on TV," Michelson-Horowitz said. "It's much more innovative."

Aside from politicians specifically targeting college-aged students this upcoming election, Post said young voters are advantaged in another way.

"Young voters have advantages over their elders this election because the majority of polling places are using electronic voting machines," she said.

Post said Generation Y is the most technologically savvy generation yet, and this will help them take command at the polls.

"The majority of young voters I've worked with felt much more comfortable with the new machines and made fewer errors than their elders," Post said.

"It seems reasonable to surmise that young voters' familiarity will give them advantages in many ways."

However, Todd Taylor (senior-international politics) the College Republican chairman, disagrees.

"Young voters are a computer generation, but I think voting will be just as easy for the elderly," Taylor said.

"It's just a matter of them asking how the new machines work. And if that's too troublesome, they can always vote using an absentee ballot."