Youth Voting

Youth voting typically refers to the voting trends of 18to 24-year-olds in the United States. Citizens as young as 18 years old were first able to vote in U.S. federal elections in 1972 following the ratification of the 26th amendment to the U.S. Constitution on July 1, 1971, which lowered the voting age in state and federal elections to 18 years old (the voting age was set at 21 years old in the original U.S. Constitution). Since that time, youth voting has been closely tracked.

Voting numbers indicate that the electoral participation of young people in the United States was highest in 1972, when they were first given the right to vote, and has declined in years since then. There are several ways to measure the ...