In this report, Jared McDonald and Michael Hanmer review the literature on youth voting, paying particular attention to how electoral institutions influence participation. They find that barriers to registration have a disproportionate effect on young people, but that removing these barriers alone will not be sufficient to eliminate the gap in turnout levels between young citizens and older groups. Although there are theoretical, empirical, and normative reasons to make voting easier, they argue that electoral reforms designed to promote registration and turnout are best viewed as vehicles to facilitate other efforts aimed at increasing individuals’ capacity for and interest in participating. Advocacy groups and scholars alike should devote more attention to identifying ways to engage young people. This task is a challenging one but there are reasons to be cautiously optimistic that substantial change is possible.
