Youth Voting Rights: Election Day Registration vs. Lowering the Voting Age

Yesterday, Anya Kamanetz had a very thoughtful op-ed in the New York Times about the need for a more rational method assessing the abilities and assigning the responsibilities of citizens based on age and mental capacity. Her main point is that some young people are responsible enough to vote, drink, drive, etc and there should be mechanisms in place to ease young people into all of those "adult" activities over a period of years (16 - 21). Conversely, as people live longer, we need to find a way to test and reassign rights to older citizens.

It's an interesting article that argues in favor of expanding the rights of young people who demonstrate that they are capable and responsible citizens, but I want to focus in on just one piece of the article. Here is Kamanetz's nut graf:

THE 2008 presidential campaign has made history in many ways, not least being the arrival of a new generation at the polls. Voters under 29 were the first to anoint Barack Obama as their candidate. Reversing a general decline that began in 1972, youth turnout leapt in 2004, and in the early contests in this primary season it was up sharply. We should hasten the enfranchisement of this generation, born between 1980 and 1995, by lowering the voting age to 16.

It may surprise people - this being a youth blog, and me being one of the major cheerleaders of young voters - but I think this is a really bad idea. Not because I don't think today's younger voters are capable of making rational, informed voting choices, but because there are more effective, and more realistic, changes that could accomplish a higher turnout rate among young voters than lowering the voting age. Any political and financial capital spent on increasing youth turnout should go to those projects instead of lowering the voting age.

In 1971, the 26th Amendment was passed, lowering the voting age to 18 years old from 21. With the Vietnam War raging, and the student political movement coming off it's high point in 1968, many thought that youth turnout at the polls would be huge, granting the Democratic candidate George McGovern a victory in his race against Nixon.

It didn't happen that way. Youth turnout that year was 55.4% (pdf). We look back at that now as the high point of youth turnout, but in 1972 it was widely regarded as a huge disappointment. Steadily declining youth turnout over the next 20 years created a sense among lawmakers that lowering the voting age is a futile gesture that does little to increase youth turnout.

Congress is old, and many of those lawmakers are still in power. Furthermore, their beliefs are widely shared even among younger lawmakers. Kamanetz's proposal, while completely logical, would require a constitutional amendment similar to the 26th Amdendment, to change the voting laws in this country. Amendments require 2/3 approval from both houses of Congress, after which 3/4 of the states must also ratify the amendment. Many lawmakers still feel like they got burned by the 26th Amdendment, making this a very large hurdle to climb.The amount of political and financial capital required to pass an amendment is enormous even without the stark opposition such an amendment would likely face.

There are better, more efficient ways to spend that political capital in service of increasing youth participation in American politics. The most important of these is election day registration - the ability to register to vote and cast a ballot on the election day. Studies show that EDR, as it is called, can boost turnout by young voters by as much as 14% (pdf). We've already seen the results of this in Iowa and New Hampshire during this primary season. Both states allow EDR and both received massively high youth turnout.

States with EDR routinely have the highest turnout among all the states, yet only a seven states currently employ some form of EDR: Iowa, New Hampshire, Idaho, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Maine, and Wyoming. Additionally, young voters in states with EDR are more likely to be contacted by a campaign. We know that personal, peer contact by a campaign can boost youth turnout by as much as 10%. In EDR states, campaigns know they can talk to a voter 1 day before the election and still get their vote, making those face to face contacts much more attractive for the campaign and much more likely for younger voters.

Additionally, EDR addresses one of the major barriers to participation that young people face - our transience. Whether we are moving from our parents home to a dorm, a dorm to an apartment, or city to city as we pursue our careers, young voters's registrations frequently lapse or become invalid due to our high level of mobility. EDR solves this problem, lowering the voting age does not.

From a tactical (and practical) perspective, Election Day Registration is also far easier to implement than a constitutional amendment. EDR can be implemented at the state level, and coalitions of youth advocates and election activists within the parties can work together to convince their state legislatures to pass EDR legislation. Such legislation should be particularly attractive to Democrats after the 2008 cycle. So far, young voters have played a huge role in the Democratic nomination process. They have proved their willingness to show up to the polls when politicians ask for their vote, and in many states young people are participating in the Democratic nomination over the GOP nomination by margins of 2 - 1 or more.

I don't disagree with the spirit, or even the main thesis of Kamanetz's piece. But in a world in which youth advocates and supporters have a finite amount of political and financial capital, implementing EDR across the nation is more realistic and would likely better serve young voters interests than lowering the voting age.