ALEIGH, N.C. - Sundeep Gandhi knows he should vote. He knows that if he doesn't, he has no right to complain about the government. He understands that, in theory, politics affects everybody, even him. He hates apathy.
And yet, Gandhi, a slight, chain-smoking, 20-year-old liberal arts student at North Carolina State University, won't be headed to a ballot booth on Nov. 7.
Gandhi feels really bad about this. It's just that he hasn't seen anything from either candidate to convince him that they're talking to him, or that they even care about what young people think. Though the idea of voting makes sense to him, it doesn't necessarily translate into action in real life.
Now, more than ever, politicians have much ground to make up with Gandhi and his contemporaries.
''I don't know anyone who has respect for politics,'' said Gandhi, sitting in the sun between classes on a recent morning. ''Part of it is the media's fault. You're 10 times more likely to hear about Clinton and how sexually deviant he is rather than how he made our lives easier. It sells, too.''
Nor does he feel connected to the process, or feel that younger voters are especially prized by the candidates.
''It doesn't feel to me that we are part of the political system in this country,'' he said. ''I know it must, but it doesn't feel like it affects my life.''
He has plenty of company.
In 1972, 50 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds voted. In 1996, that proportion had dropped to just 32 percent. And it is expected that this year's turnout among that age group will be lower still.
The reasons for that are as varied as young people themselves. They are cynical about politics and so have withdrawn from the system. They feel left out by the campaigns, so they don't bother to participate. They have too much respect for the system to vote when they feel ill-informed. They're too busy. They are too bored by politics. They don't know how to register.
And the candidates are apparently doing little to change that.
''Young people are the least likely to go out and vote, so what ends up happening is candidates won't spend their money and energy targeting them,'' said Russ Freyman project director of Neglection 2000, which is studying the campaign and young voters. ''It's a cycle of mutual neglect. But given the leadership role candidates have in our society, I tend to believe that they have a stronger ability to set the agenda.''
A survey done by Freyman's group for the months of July and August found that in 10 major television markets, 61 percent of political ads were directed to viewers over age 50, 26 percent to those 35 to 49, and 13 percent to viewers 18 to 34.
In an election as close as this, young voters might have made the difference.
Sixty-seven million of the 201 million people eligible to vote in the United States are 18 to 34, according to a 1998 report by the Committee for the Study of the American Electorate. The candidate who successfully wooed them might have opened up a large lead.
Vice President Al Gore participated in a televised MTV youth forum Sept. 26, and gave an interview to Rolling Stone magazine (he loved both ''Gladiator'' and ''The Matrix,'' he told his friend Jann Wenner, the publisher). His campaign has youth coordinators, and one of his daughters, Karenna Gore Schiff, has been trying to mobilize younger voters.
For that purpose, Governor George W. Bush of Texas has dispatched his nephew, George P. Bush, and his campaign gives ''Generation W'' stickers to young people at rallies. But there has been little other concerted effort to attract youth by Bush. Despite that, surveys have shown him with a slight edge over Gore among 18- to 24-year-olds.
Youth advocates say the candidates simply haven't taken on issues closest to younger voters' hearts in a way that relates specifically to them.
''Education is a top issue in this voting cycle,'' said Jehmu Greene, public relations director of Rock the Vote, which has been working to register young people for 10 years. ''It's also a top issue for 18- to 24-year-olds. But if you're only talking about tax breaks to help middle-class parents to put students through college, and not talking about a student who is putting himself through school, and doesn't have health care, how does that relate to younger voters?''
When, in the last debate, the candidates were asked how they planned to address young voters who are unengaged because they feel that the issues aren't theirs, both Bush and Gore gave vague answers about the need to restore trust in government to bring all voters back to the system. Neither mentioned any of the issues younger voters say are most important to them in surveys: jobs, training, gun control, and tolerance, to name a few.
''It's all about Social Security, said Senter Currin, a 20-year-old student at North Carolina State. ''All they want to do is talk about Medicare and Medicaid and prescription drugs for the elderly. They haven't said anything that relates to college students. It may affect some college students, but not the total range.''
Currin will vote because his family members are tobacco farmers, and he thinks this election might affect him very directly. But he understands why his fellow students without a stake like his choose not to vote.
An American Express Young Voter poll recently found that one in three 16- to 21-year-olds surveyed could not name each party's candidate for president. An MTV survey in early October found 70 percent of young respondents were stumped on the names of the vice presidential candidates.
''The only thing I know about the campaign is what `Saturday Night Live' says,'' said Lydia Pelto, a 19-year-old sophomore at North Carolina State. ''So, nobody likes Gore, and Bush is only in it because he's rich and he's a baby.''
''I liked Bush's dad,'' Pelto added, but then caught herself. ''Or, my dad liked him.''
Pelto won't vote because she feels so ignorant. But even some well-informed students feel they don't yet deserve to vote.
''Even though I've been following along, I'm not up with the economy of the country,'' said Matt Truscello, an 18-year-old who plays soccer at NC State. ''I'm not paying taxes yet, so it's not my place.''
Some students blamed their lack of participation on the times. They haven't had to fight, or oppose a war. Their parents are doing all right.
''In the late '60s, when Vietnam was big, it seemed like a lot of young people were involved in politics,'' said Gandhi.... It seems like there's nothing going on right now. Nothing monumental.''
Green Party candidate Ralph Nader, who has held rallies packed with thousands of young supporters, thinks the predictions of low turnout among 18- to 24-year-olds this year are wrong, and that young voters will flock to the polls this year to vote for him.
And in fact, a visit to two college campuses in North Carolina, where Nader is not even on the ballot, indicated there was solid support for him among younger voters, many of whom were planning to leave their ballots blank in protest or stay away from the polls altogether to make a point.
But for some young voters, even that is investing too much.
Warrick Carter has had the same conversation with his mother a lot lately. He tells her he's not voting, and she tells him that people died for his right to vote, that he has a duty to vote, especially because he is an African-American.
''My response is, those people died so we could vote, but there's no one for me to vote for who will affect what goes on in my generation,'' Carter said.
He voted when he first turned 18 ''because I thought it was the right thing to do,'' said Carter, who is now 27 and works as a tennis instructor and in a phone polling firm in Chapel Hill. ''But after college I had to pay taxes and that made me think, `What are these taxes for?'''
Carter's priorities - strengthening the family, improving education - are like many older voters'. But he no longer thinks a president can, or cares to, improve those things.
''I'm more cynical about politics than my mother is because of what I've seen,'' he said. ''Learning in school about the Watergate scandal, then to the present day, with Bill Clinton. Ronald Reagan was an extreme example of the popularity contest. Once I look at the characters involved, it's just like a movie to me. None of these people seem like people. It's like they're made up.''
