MySpace users are ready to vote

One of the open questions about this year's election is whether the youth vote will finally stand up for itself. A new poll of MySpace users, evenly divided among party affiiliations, seems to indicate they will.

BusinessWeek reports that the survey shows MySpace users are highly politically engaged and overwhelmingly plan to vote in their primaries and in November.

MySpace users are highly likely to get informed on politics via the Web. Compared with the general population of online adults, MySpace users are 139% more likely to visit an online chat room with public officials or political candidates and 50% more likely to watch a political or public affairs-related video online. They're also 29% more likely to have looked up political or campaign information on the Internet. Among respondents, 86% say they are "extremely likely" or "likely" to vote in the 2008 Presidential election.

So apparently there is some value in all those candidates' MySpace pages and other social networking involvement. MySpacers are trending somewhat Democratic:

Of those who voted for George Bush in 2004, 25% plan to vote Democrat, while 18% of those who voted for John Kerry in '04 plan to vote Republican in 2008. Among respondents, 27% define themselves as Independents, compared with 8% of the general population.