Title: Youth vote in the United States - Wikipedia
Headings: Youth vote in the United States
Youth vote in the United States
Contents
History of the Youth Vote
Variables affecting the youth vote in the United States
Voting process
Two party system
Frequent change of residence
Lack of candidate contact
Volunteering efforts
Efforts to encourage youth vote
Organizations
Campaign strategies
Legislation
See also
Further reading
References
External links

Content: Ever since 18-year-olds were given the right to vote in 1972, youth have been under represented at the polls as of 2003. In 1976, one of the first elections in which 18-year-olds were able to vote, 18–24 year-olds made up 18 percent of all eligible voters in America, but only 13 percent of the actual voters – an under-representation of one-third. In the next election in 1978, youth were under-represented by 50 percent. " Seven out of ten young people…did not vote in the 1996 presidential election… 20 percent below the general turnout." In 1998, out of the 13 percent of eligible youth voters in America, only five percent voted. During the competitive presidential race of 2000, 36 percent of youth turned out to vote and in 2004, the "banner year in the history of youth voting," 47 percent of the American youth voted. In the Democratic primaries for the 2008 U.S. presidential election, the number of youth voters tripled and even quadrupled in some states compared to the 2004 elections. In 2008, Barack Obama spoke about the contributions of young people to his election campaign outside of just voter turnout. Contents
1 History of the Youth Vote
2 Variables affecting the youth vote in the United States
2.1 Voting process
2.2 Two party system
2.3 Frequent change of residence
2.4 Lack of candidate contact
2.5 Volunteering efforts
3 Efforts to encourage youth vote
3.1 Organizations
3.2 Campaign strategies
3.3 Legislation
4 See also
5 Further reading
6 References
7 External links
History of the Youth Vote
Initially, the framers of the U.S. Constitution and state voting laws were skeptical of the role of young people in American politics. States uniformly set 21 as the voting age, although Connecticut debated lowering it to 18 in 1819.