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: 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. In general, young Americans were expected to be deferential to their elders, and John Adams famously cautioned that expanding suffrage would encourage "lads from twelve to twenty-one" to demand the right to vote. Yet as the suffrage expanded to non-property-holders in the early 1800s, young people came to play a larger role in politics. During the rise of Jacksonian Democracy, youths often organized Young Men’s clubs in support of the Democratic, National Republican, Whig, or Anti-Masonic parties. Presidential campaigns often organized torch-lit rallies of thousands of marchers, and analyses of these club rosters show that members were often in their late teens and early twenties. The demands of popular democracy – which often drew voter turnouts above 80% of eligible voters – led political machines to rely on youths as cheap, enthusiastic campaigners for political machines.