OneVote will also kick off Youth-e-Vote, the first national registration and online vote in American history. Youth-e-Vote will continue through Thursday, November 2, when its results, including the OneVote tallies and the returns from NSPME and other youth voting programs, will be announced in an historic national student vote. 

All online voting for OneVote and Youth-e-Vote will be powered pro bono by election.com, the global Internet election company that conducted the first legally binding online public election - for the Arizona Democratic Presidential Primary.

OneVote culminates a nine-month effort by Channel One to inform teens about the political process and engage teens, some of whom will be real first-time voters this fall, in the electoral process. During those months, Channel One News has provided extensive coverage of the Presidential campaigns, including those of Pat Buchanan, George W. Bush, Al Gore, and Ralph Nader. It has also closely covered the events and people who have impacted the race.

Channel One's programming has actively addressed voter apathy among young adults. Since 1972, when 18- to 20-year-olds were granted the right to vote by the Twenty-Sixth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, voting by young adults has declined by 35 percent.

Students voting in OneVote will be eligible to win scholarships with values from $1,000 to $25,000, plus computers, digital cameras, pagers, two-way radios, personal digital assistants, and educational software.

"Voting is central to the democratic ideals of our nation," said Jim Ritts, President and CEO of Channel One. "OneVote, combined with Channel One's ongoing news coverage of national issues, prepares teens throughout the United States to be educated voters and actively engages them in the electoral process."

For more information, or to sign up to participate in OneVote, visit the project's Web site at: http://www.youthevote.net

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