With the results from Tuesday night’s vote in Florida already behind the candidates, the youth vote may have played a critical role in the Sunshine state’s primary.

According to Florida PIRG, the number of voters in the state between the ages of 18 and 29 has more than tripled for both Democrats and Republicans since 2000.

In 2000, Florida PIRG reported the number of youth Democrats numbering at 38,639 and young Republicans at a further 41,970. In contrast, the group said in 2008 that there were 151,595 Democrats and 134,425 Republicans.

According to The Center for Information and Research on Civil Learning, the number of youth voters – when statistics were available – have increased in all 2008 primaries except in Iowa where the number of youth Republicans dropped by 10,000.

Youth voters, which now equal a quarter of the national electorate, will play a critical role in the 2008 election, Newvotersproject.com reported.

“Since 2003, we’ve registered more than 600,000 18-30 year olds and made 650,000 personalized, peer to peer contacts to turn young people out to the polls,” the Web site said.

“Young people contacted by the Student PIRGs’ New Voters Project turned out at a rate 13 percentage points higher than a group of demographically similar individuals who also registered to vote within six months of the election.”

Dave Humphreys can be reached at [email protected]