Youth Election Results

A lot of talk was made over whether young voters could build on the previous years of turnout and increase youth voting again.  While it is clear that they did not break the previous record of youth voting in a midterm of 2006, the decline if youth voters is far less than what most news organizations have been saying.  According to the most recent CIRCLE estimates, the percentage of youth voters was around 22.8%.  While it will still be a few more weeks before official results are in, this estimate is similar to the 23.5% that showed up in 2006.  But the important question is what do these totals represent?

For one thing, youth vote still remains the most liberal of any of the age groups.  As noted by many newspaper outlets and blogs, a large factor in the shift in Congress is a result of the enthusiasm gap where many Democrats stayed at home compared to 2008 while Republicans energized by the last few years showed up to change the makeup of Congress.  This is doubly true for young voters where they experienced a similar enthusiasm gap but also were not courted by most politicians.  While this clearly helped the Republicans gain control, if President Obama wishes to stay in office, the youth vote must be a priority in 2012.  But politicians seem lost in what ways youth turnout can be increased.  While this isn't a comprehensive list here are some easy ways to energize young voters:

• Election Day Registration:  Being able to register to vote on election day and then voting is one of the single biggest ways to increase youth turnout.  One of the main reasons is the problems and confusion surrounding voting at a college campus.  I'll do a rundown on the benefits of Election Day Registration in a later post but with many problems regarding proving residency, many students are given provisional ballots on election day which usually don't get counted.  At the University of Maryland, over 1/3 of the voters were given provisional ballots.
• Touting Accomplishments:  While this Congress did help out young people with the student aid financial reform, many students weren't aware of the changes that occurred.  By making the accomplishments of your party known to young voters, it can prove that their vote wasn't wasted and the issues affecting young voters are getting the attention they deserve.
• Focusing on Youth Issues:  A large problem is that despite the results of the 2010 election, both parties still ignore the issues young people want.  While college is certainly one issue, many other issues such as climate change legislation, raising minimum wage, and public transit are important to young people.  Additionally, as the most diverse age group, issues such as "immigration, violence in urban cities, and public education" are important to many youth voters of color and still have not given the attention they need.      
• Appealing to Young Voters:  One of the final pieces is simply making the dialogue about young voters. The news cycle and ads largely ignored any issues that interested young voters.  Most ads that I saw were focused on kicking out incumbents, the stimulus, and repealing health care.  The first two are not a priority of young voters and health care, while allowing young voters to stay on a plan until 26, bill mostly focused on reforms for older people.

If you're still in need of more facts and analysis here are a few good articles about the results:

Peter Levine the director of CIRCLE, asks what the youth turnout means?

CIRCLE also has a really good breakdown of young voters in 2010 if you have the time.

Ezra Klein of the WaPo shows how important young voters were to Democrats in 2008 and 2010.