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Voter turnout among young Americans has been dismal since 18-year-olds earned the right to vote with the passage of the 26th amendment in 1971. Even in 2018\u2014a high water mark for youth voting\u20147 in 10 young voters failed to turn out. In most presidential and midterm elections it\u2019s not uncommon to see older voters turn out at a rate twice as high as their younger counterparts.<\/p>\n
These patterns have a significant negative impact on our democracy. Among other things, youth disengagement grants more political power to the elderly. Low youth turnout also deprives young people of the civic benefits that come from participating in this foundational act of democracy.<\/p>\n
Some people argue that the reason that younger Americans fail to turn out is that they are apathetic about politics. Pundits commonly lament that millennials are cynical, disinterested, and self-absorbed\u2014turned off by today\u2019s polarized environment or more concerned about taking selfies than participating in civic life.<\/p>\n
As the figure below shows, young people are very<\/em> interested in politics\u2014and this is especially true in recent years, when polarization has been especially pronounced.<\/p>\n Though many young people want, intend, and even plan to vote, they are much more likely than their elder counterparts to be derailed by the obstacles that stand in the way of them voting. Young people are twice as likely to fail to follow through even when they say that they intend to vote compared to older voters. The problem for young people is not <\/em>that they are disinterested in politics; it\u2019s that they too often fail to follow through on their good intentions because of the personal distractions and institutional barriers that get in the way.<\/p>\n In my work with Sunshine Hillygus at Duke University, we have identified two reforms that would help young people convert their civic attitudes into civic action. These are outlined in our new book “Making Young Voters: Converting Civic Attitudes to Civic Action<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n Many states have substantial institutional hurdles that must be cleared to vote\u2014such as when, where, and how one can register to vote and\u00a0what materials one needs to take with them to the polls. Even though these may not seem like significant barriers to people who have been established in their communities for a very long time, these are bigger obstacles for new and young voters. Reforms like Election Day registration, preregistration for 16- and 17-year-olds, automatic voter registration, and in-class registration drives in high schools would go a long way towards reducing the barriers to participation. In our work, we find that these reforms tend to have an especially large impact on young people coming into the electorate for the first time.<\/p>\n At present, many schools follow what we call \u2018bubble sheet civics\u2019 by focusing all of their attention on teaching facts and figures about politics, government, and history. This approach simply doesn\u2019t work. Students who take more of these traditional civics classes are no more likely to vote than those who take fewer\u2014and states that require more (bland) civics classes to graduate high school have similar youth voter turnout to those that have lower graduation requirements.<\/p>\n At present, many schools follow what we call \u2018bubble sheet civics\u2019 by focusing all of their attention on teaching facts and figures about politics, government, and history. This approach simply doesn\u2019t work.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n The types of school programs that help the most are the ones that focus on contemporary political issues, get students involved in civic and political action (e.g., registering other citizens to vote or working on a community problem), and teach young people the applied skills that they need to follow through on their good intentions. Sunshine and I find that such programs have a large impact on voter turnout. One such program, the Fast Track intervention implemented in the 1990s, was particularly successful at encouraging young people to vote. This program spent a few hours each week of the school year teaching young people to work well with others and persevere when things got difficult. This program had long-term benefits: increasing youth turnout by 30%.<\/p>\n Even if, however, schools spend less time on teaching young people the ins and outs of voting they have the potential to have a large impact on voting. Indeed, we have good evidence that simply taking the time to teach young people how to vote, to practice interacting with a voting booth, and registering them to vote can have a big impact. These types of reforms have been shown to increase rates of youth turnout by as much as six percentage points.<\/p>\n Voting is unnecessarily complex for young people and civics curricula are not doing what they need to do to bring the next generation of citizens to the polls. Much is at stake, but efforts to increase youth participation are well worth the attention of policymakers, citizens, and other vested parties interested in improving the quality of our democracy.<\/p>\n John Holbein is a guest contributor for the RAISE the Vote Campaign<\/a>. The views expressed in the posts and articles featured in the RAISE the Vote campaign are those of the authors and contributors alone and do not represent the views of APSA. <\/em>John Holbein<\/strong><\/a> is an Assistant Professor of Public Policy at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy at the University of Virginia. He studies political participation, political inequality, democratic accountability, political representation, and education policy. <\/em>His work has been published in the American Political Science Review [4x], the American Journal of Political Science, the Journal of Politics [2x], the Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory, and Nature Human Behavior (to name a few). His research has been supported by two large National Science Foundation grants. <\/em>His book, Making Young Voters: Converting Civic Attitudes into Civic Action<\/a>, is published via Cambridge University Press. It explores ways to increase perpetually low rates of voter participation among young people. <\/em>His work has been covered by outlets such as the Washington Post, Vox, New York Magazine, the Boston Globe, NPR, Bloomberg, Politico, Fast Company, Salon, Business Insider, the 74, VoxEu, and FiveThirtyEight.<\/em><\/p>\n The contributor for this post was recommended by the<\/em> Elections, Public Opinion, and Voting Behavior Organized Section.<\/em><\/a> Joining an APSA Organized Section, like this one, can provide an additional way to network and get the word out about your research, teaching, and other professional activities. Consider\u00a0<\/em>joining<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0the Elections, Public Opinion, and Voting Behavior section today!<\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/politicalsciencenow.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/rtv_3.16.png\")
<\/p>\nSo, what is<\/em> the problem?<\/h3>\n
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<\/p>\nFirst, electoral reforms can help reduce the complexity of registering and voting.<\/h3>\n
Second, we need to transform civic education in the United States.<\/h3>\n
To bolster youth voting, we need to do more than we\u2019re already doing.<\/h3>\n
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