Adapted from a story by The Washington Post’s Kayla Epstein and Emily Guskin.
And organizations like NextGen America, which is one of several groups dedicated to turning out young voters this year, say they have registered over 200,000 voters for the midterm elections. (NextGen is a liberal group but must register individuals of all party affiliations.) A record 800,000 people from all age groups signed up on National Voter Registration Day, Sept 25.
But will young registered voters actually show up on Election Day? Historically, they haven’t done so well in that respect.
“We won’t know until Election Day whether the atmosphere in this election cycle, which is certainly a distinct atmosphere, translates to more engagement or not,” said Justin Levitt, an election law expert and professor at Loyola Law School at Los Angeles.
New Jersey native Frankie Constantino, 18, attends school at George Mason University in Virginia, and politics had never been a part of his daily life. “I found myself too busy to think about politics. I never cared much,” he said.
His roommate encouraged him to register, but Constantino ’s still deciding whether to actually head to the polls in November. He’s not sure his vote counts and doesn’t identify strongly with any particular party.
A Gallup poll from late September showed that only 26 percent of voters ages 18 to 29 were “absolutely” certain to vote, compared with 55 percent of 30- to 49-year-olds. A poll of 18- to 24-year-olds from the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning & Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University painted a rosier picture, showing that 34 percent of them are “extremely likely” to vote.
There are signs that at the very least, youth voter turnout will exceed 2014’s rock-bottom 16 percent turnout. Some young people believe that voting, especially in this election, is a civic duty.
“The younger you go, the more enthusiasm we seem to be sensing,” said CIRCLE Director Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg. “We expected to see lowest enthusiasm among youngest voters, but this year we’re not seeing that trend at all. Within our sample, we’re seeing about as many 18- to 19-year-olds extremely likely to vote as the older ones.”
“My sense is that voters of all stripes are looking at the policies that they watch the government produce and they’re connecting it more to the voting process,” said Levitt.
“My vote and every people’s vote is so vital to causing change,” said Smitha Mahesh, 19, a Johns Hopkins University student who would be voting in her first election. “As a first generation [citizen] and a woman of color, I realized I need to vote to speak for those who cannot vote.”
