According to a press release we received yesterday, AT&T, acting with profitable civic-mindedness, has gotten together with Rock the Vote to encourage young voters to… send more text messages about politics?!

In fact, the program seems cool. Rock the Vote is aiming to register 2 million people under the age of 30 for the 2008 election. No small thing. So the Rock the Vote staff were all brainstorming, like: “Damn, what’s the best way to get hold of these young people, to involve them in the process?” But the meeting was frustrating because everyone in the room was just nodding and texting the whole time. Then, whoa, it was like total kismet: “We can do it… via txt !!”

But what exactly people will be texting isn’t clear. Here’s a blurb from the release:

The AT&T and Rock the Vote campaign will employ wireless applications such as cross-carrier text message opt-in lists for election news and reminders, voter-registration updates and tools to facilitate increased registration. The campaign will also feature exclusive celebrity ringtones that promote the importance of voting, text-polling, reports from student journalists and event sponsorships, among other initiatives.

By “tools to facilitate increased registration” we think AT&T might mean text updates of registration center locations, or e-forms… not sure, though, so guess we’ll have to get busy doing some journalism and find out!

Here’s some related interesting stats for your holiday pleasure:
In post-2000 elections, 6.2 million new voters under 30 years of age cast ballots.
In 2008, 44 million Americans under 30 will be eligible to vote, more than one-fifth of all U.S. voters.

That means you!