Youth Political Engagement: Why Rock the Vote Hits the Wrong Note
Susan Orr, University of Florida
Michael Hoover, Seminole Community College
INTRODUCTION
Western liberal democracies have seemingly witnessed declining voter
participation in recent decades. Figures indicate that most political democracies were
experiencing lower turnout at the end of the twentieth century than they had been forty
years earlier (IDEA 2004).
According to some, low turnout puts the very legitimacy of
the democratic system at risk (Lijphart 1997; Patterson 2000; Putnam 2000). Observers
express particular concern that young non-voters will exclude themselves from the
electoral process throughout their lifetimes; thus, youth turnout has received special
consideration. With this in mind, let us look at some figures indicating a general
downturn offset by the occasional spike. Voting in the U.S. among 18-24 year olds fell
from almost 50% of in the 1972 presidential election to 40% in 1984, and hitting a low
of 32% in 1996 (Census Bureau 2005).
While this decline reversed itself in 1992, when
43% of this group went to the polls, the percentage of 18-24 year olds voting in the 2000
presidential election matched the historic low of 1996. A second upswing then occurred
in 2004, when 42% of eligible 18-24 year olds went to the polls.
While it is indisputable that young people vote less than the general population
(Wolfinger & Rosenstone 1980; Conway 2000), the implications of this circumstance are
1
For a discussion of the evidence for turnout decline in Organization for Economic Cooperation and
Development (OECD) member democracies since 1960, see Wattenberg (2002, 27-34). For a list indicating
that in 17 of 19 “advanced” democracies around the world, turnout in the 1990s was lower than in the
1950s, see The Economist (17 July 1999, 50). For a contrary view suggesting that the “vanishing voter” in
the United States is a myth, see McDonald and Popkin (2001). Employing a voting eligible population
denominator that excludes the ineligible such as non-citizens and felons (both of which have increased in
number) rather than the Census Bureau’s voting age population, the authors maintain that there has been
little decline in turnout during the previous three decades.
2
Campbell, et al. (1960) and other American National Election Studies researchers have noted that the
proportion of people who say they vote is always higher than the proportion that actually votes.
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