Tackling the Youth Turnout Problem

Youth voter participation remains an intractable problem for holding truly representative elections in America. Young voters, ages 18 to 29, consistently make up 20% to 22% of the electorate, which is defined as those who are eligible to vote. But due to consistently low rates of turnout, they do not carry a corresponding level of electoral influence. The chart below illustrates this phenomenon; young people form the smallest share of voters in both midterm and presidential election years. Policymakers have utilized multiple approaches, with mixed results, to fix this problem. University of Chicago Professor Anthony Fowler, in a paper published in Election Law Journal, analyzes one such approach: preregistration, the practice of allowing 16- and 17-year-olds to register to vote in advance of turning 18. Fowler investigated whether this policy noticeably increased youth electoral participation, and ultimately found a two percentage point increase in youth turnout in states that adopted it.

For data collection and analysis, Fowler turned to five states that allow both 16- and 17-year-olds to preregister: Colorado, Delaware, Florida, Maryland, and Rhode Island. The study looked at youth turnout rather than registration in 2010, 2012, 2014, and 2016 because turnout is more reliable, and underlying data was more accessible. Further, turnout is the most salient metric because preregistration’s ultimate goal is to get young voters to the polls.

Fowler found that a preregistration policy does indeed accomplish this goal, increasing youth voter turnout by two percentage points on average. The effect was higher in the presidential election years (2012 and 2016) and lower in the midterm years (2010 and 2014), which is unsurprising given that presidential elections tend to attract a greater number of infrequent voters.

Additionally, Fowler found that preregistration had a greater effect on turnout when offered at both ages 16 and 17, rather than only age 17. He posits that 17-year-olds who preregister would likely have registered upon turning 18 anyway. 16-year-olds, meanwhile, may preregister out of convenience while obtaining a driver’s license at the DMV. Without the preregistration policy, many of these voters may not have registered at all. Fowler summarizes this point by saying that, “to the extent that preregistration is more effective than other reforms, we might attribute its success to the low take-up costs. Future policy entrepreneurs should heed these lessons and look for more opportunities to engage future voters while they are already interacting with the state for other reasons.”

Though Fowler’s findings are significant, they are modest compared to those of previous studies. However, Fowler posits that the previous studies are methodologically flawed. For example, Holbein and Hillygus considered the effects of California preregistration immediately after the law was passed. However, the actual effects could not have been known for two more years, when the 16- and 17-year-olds actually became eligible to vote. In addition, an empirical study written by McDonald and Thornburg estimated that preregistration policies would increase youth turnout by nearly double the two percentage points observed by Fowler. Fowler contends that their study is incomplete because it failed to control for differences between those who preregistered and those who did not. For instance, those who preregistered may have been wealthier and hence more likely to vote, even in the absence of a preregistration policy. Additionally, those who registered on their own after their 18th birthday might have been more motivated to vote than those who preregistered out of convenience. Either scenario could distort the actual effect of the preregistration policy.

By expanding preregistration options, particularly in concert with other measures like vote-by-mail, youth voter participation can be expanded nationwide. This expansion will, in turn, reduce inequities in the electorate and promote policies that better reflect the population’s preferences. Given the vast disparities between the actual electorate and the potential electorate, policymakers would do well to expand such practices.

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Fowler, Anthony. 2017. “Does Voter Preregistration Increase Youth Participation?” Election Law Journal: Rules, Politics, and Policy 16, no. 4: 485–94. https://doi.org/10.1089/elj.2017.0436.