So the young people don’t vote, huh? So “Super Tuesday” was supposed to decide it all, eh?

Thank the gods that conventional wisdom about youth voting and primary season was shattered on Feb. 5. It’s about time this happened.

[X]press’ own unscientific, on-campus exit poll surveyed 409 people who voted on campus. Sixty-nine percent of the people polled said they voted for Barack Obama while only 20 percent voted for Hillary Clinton. Numbers for the total people who voted on campus are not available until later this week, according to San Francisco’s Dept. of Elections.

If reports hold up, then this will be the highest statewide primary turnout since 1980. Our own polling place on campus ran out of ballots and voter guides, as did polling stations in Alameda, Santa Clara and Contra Costa counties. For places to run out of ballots shows the low expectations for each election. Now it’s time for a change.

For years, various pundits and commentators have said that people need to be involved in the voting process.

Now this seems to be happening and hopefully it can be sustained through the November election.

For once, California did play a role in the nomination process. No longer did our citizens just resign themselves to vote for a candidate who was chosen many months before. This time around there was a real belief that their votes made a difference. That idea appears to drive voters out of their homes and into polling booths.

What an absolute joy to be able to vote and then wait impatiently for the results, knowing that anything could happen. The Democratic race is far from over. Maybe the Democratic convention will roll around and their candidate will remain unknown.

This year the two Democratic front-runners, Clinton and Obama, both are inspiring people to go and exercise their right to vote. Clinton has 811 delegates and Obama has 720. Both are striving to reach the goal of 2,025. Both are still very much in the race.

On the Republican side, Sen. John McCain has 616 of the 1,191 delegates needed to win his party’s nomination. His closest competitor is Mitt Romney, who has 269 delegates.

After eight years of Bush, people are ready for something different. Moving the primary up to February was a good idea. People are showing that they care when given the chance to make a difference.