The Youth Vote: A Quick Primer

There are a lot of reasons why so many young people don’t vote, but one of the most likely reasons is that for most of the last 30 years, politicians have paid more attention to older voters, which makes young people feel like politicians don’t care about their interests. Young people respond by not voting, which reinforces for politicians that it isn’t worth paying attention to young people. This downward spiral is called “the cycle of mutual neglect.”

The best way out of the hole is to run focused campaigns to increase youth voter turnout, show politicians how they can copy our success and boost the youth vote by focusing on the youth vote themselves. 

That’s basically what happened in the 2008 primary. Thanks in large part to our work and others' work to focus the attention of politicians on young voters, the presidential candidates from both parties did more to target young people than any other time in recent history. They talked about issues important to young people, like Iraq, heath care, and global warming. They went to college campuses. And they recruited and trained volunteers to run get out the vote efforts like ours.