By Miriam Barcenas
Trinity Times Correspondent
WASHINGTON — When Trinity Washington University sophomore Destiny Davis cast her ballot during the 2022 midterm election, she became part of the growing youth vote throughout the U.S. to make a decisive impact on the nation’s political direction.
The 21-year-old Black Maryland resident had been encouraged by her mother to participate in this past election cycle, emphasizing that her constitutional right to vote was a hard-fought-for privilege for people of color in the U.S.
Davis was one of the millions of voters under the age of 30 to cast ballots in the November election, marking the second-highest youth voter turnout in the past 30 years, according to the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University’s Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life.
The estimated 27% of eligible voters in the under 30 age demographics in 2022 is slightly behind the historic 31% nationwide in 2018, according to the CIRCLE report.
The highest turnout of young voters happened in the battleground states of Georgia, Florida, Michigan, and North Carolina, with 31% showing up to cast their ballots, the CIRCLE report showed.
It proved to be impactful in an election where Republicans were expected to make tremendous gains in both houses of Congress, yet only won a slight majority of seats in the House of Representatives and left the Senate in Democratic control.
An exit poll conducted by CIRCLE shows that about 63% of young voters supported candidates in the Democratic party and political observers believe this helped block the anticipated large Republican gains in Congress and state legislatures throughout the U.S.
The youth vote has historically been an elusive one for either major political party to motivate, but political leaders have continued to try to woo them.
Trinity Washington University President Pat McGuire blasted an email out to students at the school on the day of the Nov. 8, 2022, election to engage them in the political process.
“Whatever party you choose, whatever candidates you support, it’s vitally important for every citizen to VOTE,” the McGuire email read. “Your vote counts! If you want to see change in laws and policies, you have to vote. Voting is the most fundamental responsibility of citizenship in a democracy.”
A U.S. constitutional amendment was passed in 1971 lowering the voting age from 21 to 18, yet in the decades to follow the youth voter turnout hovered around 20% in midterm elections, a trend that didn’t change until 2018.
Citizens under the age of 30 are often viewed as unreliable voters, blamed on apathetic views on voting, lack of candidate contact and inaccessibility to the voting process.
However, since 2016 advocacy groups have targeted this potential voting block and worked toward changing policy to make voting easier and more accessible.
Over time, the numbers of young voters participating in elections has increased.
Still, for young people to make even a greater difference in a society they will eventually inherit, those voter turnout percentages will have to increase by larger numbers.
“I chose to do mail-in vote,” said Tiara Stith, 22, a senior at Trinity and a Maryland resident. “I go to school, and I work so it was easier for (the ballot) to be shipped to my home. That (mail-in vote option) encouraged me to do it because I didn’t have to go out and stand in the lines at the polls.”
Voting by mail was expanded throughout the U.S. during the COVID-19 pandemic and that option is credited with a higher youth voter turnout in the 2020 election.
However, several state legislatures past laws limiting mail-in voting options in 2021 over the objections of voting rights advocacy groups.
Voting by mail, however, is seen as tool to encourage younger voter turnout, said Mercedez Callenes, an assistant professor of global affairs at Trinity.
“There is a package of strategies that civic society can do to increase youth participation,” Callenes said. “In the short term, we can facilitate information for voting registration. Develop policies to make it easier for people to participate in elections.
“In the medium term, we could lift barriers such as the type of ID required to vote, same-day registration where voters can register and vote all in one place,” she said. “I think in the long term we could focus on making voting second nature, especially in a democracy.
“If the voting age is 18, then we should talk about voting when young people are 16,” Callenes said, “and they can pre-register so they can go through a variety of simulations to prepare them for when they are at the legal age to vote.”
The driving issues motivating young voters to cast their vote last November included legal abortion, LGBTQ+ rights, and gun violence, according to the CIRCLE exit poll.
Candidates have an opportunity to motivate a larger percentage of the youth vote in the next election by talking about the issues that voting block is passionate about, Callenes said, adding that the importance of instilling the habit of voting in young voters is the essential component in keeping democracy alive. She has encouraged Trinity students to use this link https://www.usa.gov/register-to-vote to get started in the voting process.