The Year of the Youth Vote?
By Kay Steiger - Oct 22nd, 2008 at 4:25 pmAs we get closer to election day, all the old foggies have their eyes on us young people. But a report from the Raleigh News & Observer notes that young people in North Carolina are already surpassing older folks in terms of early voting–8.5 percent of registered voters aged 18-24 have already voted or requested an absentee ballot, versus 6.3 percent of registered voters aged 25-45. (For more information about national youth voter trends, check out Future Majority’s post on CIRCLE numbers, and note that CIRCLE tends to define “youth” as ages 18 to 29.)
North Carolina stats also show that more than 200,000 of the 700,000 new voters this year fall into the 18-24 age group. As usual, the article raises doubt about whether or not youth will actually show up on Election Day, but based on North Carolina’s early voters it looks like they are.
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