Test your voting knowledge!

1. Compared to other college students across the country, do Davidson students…

 

 vote proportionately more

 vote proportionately less

 vote around the same rate

In both the 2018 midterm elections and the 2020 general election, Davidson students voted at a significantly higher rate than other institutions according to the National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement.

2. Is Election Day…

 The first Tuesday after the first Monday in November

 The second Tuesday in November

 Two and a half weeks before Thanksgiving

 November 8th

Election Day takes place on the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November.  Even in years between the midterm and general elections, local positions are on the ballot.

3. How far is the nearest polling location from Chambers?

 0.2 miles

 0.4 miles

 0.6 miles

 1 mile

The Davidson Town Hall at 251 South St, Davidson, NC 28036, recently became the closest polling location to campus, just a short walk or drive away.

4. What percentage of eligible Davidson students voted in the 2020 general election?

 66%

 77%

 88%

 99%

Just under 90% of eligible students on campus voted in the 2020 election.  Keep it up Wildcats!

5. What percentage of eligible Davidson students are registered to vote as of 2020?

 88%

 94%

 98%

 100%

Between 2018 and 2020, the percentage of Davidson students registered to vote jumped from 88% to 98%.

6. What percentage of Davidson students voted in the 2018 midterm elections?

 51%

 62%

 73%

 84%

Significantly fewer Davidson students voted in the 2018 midterm election than in the 2020 general election, but they still voted at a higher rate than other institutions.

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At this point, we are still waiting to receive Davidson’s NSLVE campus reports from 2018 and 2020. Once obtained, we’ll add more content to this section.

Using exit-polling data from the 2022 midterm elections, our project investigates Davidson’s student voter turnout and situates local data within the larger, national trends in youth civic engagement. From there, we are examining potential improvements for the college and its student organizations to help increase engagement and political participation in future elections. We will also use site interaction (user-friendly quiz) to help pinpoint and root out our community’s misperceptions about voting and its impact. The project will feature the following sections: 1) Davidson-specific voting data and analysis; 2) a summary of national trends in civic engagement across age groups; 3) an assessment of potential causes for our Davidson-specific findings; 4) practical suggestions/recommendations for the Davidson community moving forward (including resources); and 5) an interactive quiz to help highlight popular misperceptions. 

For decades, voter turnout and political mobilization have been primary focuses for candidates, campaigns, advocacy organizations, and scholars alike. Both in the runup and the aftermath of US elections, the field uses exit polling data to draw conclusions about voting trends and the country’s overall political participation. And although broad trends for civic engagement are promising, the full story is more nuanced – demographic breakdowns suggest a divide exists between the oldest and youngest electorates. Using Davidson College student voting behavior as a case study, this project examines such demographic trends in the wake of the 2022 US midterm election cycle. But before diving into the local data, it is important to situate Davidson within the larger, national context of voter demographics and political participation, where experts have already identified trends and drawn conclusions from past election cycles.

Recently, the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University estimated that roughly 27% of youth, defined as citizens ages 18-29, cast a ballot in the 2022 midterms. This data maintains the upward trajectory of young adult turnout in midterms, as the same electorate also voted at a clip north of 25% in the 2018 election. Although the 2022 statistic marks youth turnout in a midterm election at the second highest level in almost 30 years, political scholarship can’t seem to agree on the message and story derived therein. A simplification of the current literature would situate authors into one of two camps: those who see this demographic data as a push in the right direction and commend the young electorate for its impact, and those who see this election as another example of disappointing civic engagement from the youngest voting bloc.

Scholars like Bhatti et al., Pultzer, and Khalid fall within the latter, as their work portrays the current demographic voting trends in a negative light and offers explanations. From the outset of their article, Bhatti and Hansen situate young-adult political participation less favorably. They write that “contrary to common belief, the relationship between age and turnout among the youngest eligible individuals is not monotonically positive, but rather strongly negative” (380). But more so than the data itself, Bhatti and Hansen are concerned with the story behind the trends. They urge that voting exists as an inherently social endeavor, meaning that “the primary social network the citizen is engaged in heavily influences whether she turns out or not” (382). As citizens enter their first years of voting eligibility, they are still living with parents or guardians, those who are more likely to have established consistent voting habits. But when young adults “move out,” their new social network does not typically possess the same voting patterns, leading to a sharp decline in participation rates for college-aged individuals. Bhatti et al. explain young-adult voter trends from a social angle, but the underlying theme persists – people ages 18-29 are voting at lower clips than any other eligible bloc, and there must be a reason why.

Other scholars approach youth engagement from a similarly negative angle while providing other explanations for the poor turnout. Eric Pultzer describes low participation from the youngest electorate as a product of inertia, where citizens are increasingly likely to vote in subsequent elections when the habit has formed in previous ones. Therefore, younger voters are less likely to have formed strong voting habits and/or shouldered the costs of voting, resulting in a portion of the population with less inertia for future voting. Every time someone votes, the costs of voting in the future decrease, habitual voting habits are born, and political participation increases over time. At least that’s what Pultzer theorizes. Other scholars see low youth engagement merely as a product of accumulating costs, those which serve as a significant deterrent to voting. Asma Khalid and her colleagues at NPR took a closer look at college students, finding that a host of misperceptions keep the youngest electorate removed from the political process. Their research found that nearly 20 percent of working-class youth “said they don’t think they know enough to be able to vote,” most feel it is an ineffective means for change, and some even thought a DUI meant they were ineligible to participate. Not only are these misperceptions a significant deterrent, but rapid location chance is also a factor. As young adults move away from home, many feel disengaged from their local politics, are unsure how to reregister in their new location, or lack knowledge on how to request an absentee ballot. The costs investigated by Khalid et al. are felt in large part by the youngest voting blocs, which can help explain why such a stark gap exists between old and young voter behavior.

While there exists a breadth of scholarship explaining why youth voter turnout is comparatively low, there are also scholars who identify upward trends in the polling data and seek to identify the factors which are increasingly motivating young adults to the polls. As discussed in CIRCLE’s study, 2022 continued the positive trend in youth midterm participation. “After hovering around 20% turnout in midterm elections since the 1990s, young people shifted that trend in 2018 and largely maintained that trend in 2022, with more than a quarter of young people casting a ballot.” Although the overall figure may be lower than other age groups, CIRCLE identifies young adult participation as a key factor in deterring the “red wave.” Derived from exit polling data from House of Representatives elections, researchers found that young adults preferred Democratic candidates by a 28-point margin, and they asserted that the impact was felt significantly in battleground states. This divide may be attributed to the election’s most pressing issues, namely abortion rights — young voters cited it as their number one issue with no other age group prioritizing it similarly.

Other work echoes a similar sentiment regarding youth turnout, one that highlights the impact of the age group’s participation and considers implications for future elections. William Frey at the Brookings Institute underscores the same trends as those discussed by CIRCLE, while also drawing conclusions for Democrats post-election. He writes that “For a variety of reasons—including concerns about abortion, inclusivity, democracy, and education—it seems likely that Gen Z and young millennials will become the future core of the Democratic coalition.” Frey makes these assertions based on exit polling data highlighting the overwhelming support young people showed Democratic candidates. He argues that as the youngest voting bloc continues to age, Democrats should be optimistic given that their values align closely with those of the generations that comprise “youth voters” in 2022.

The current field of scholarly work regarding youth voter turnout is extensive yet mixed. While some view sub-30% participation as abysmal and in need of immediate improvement, others look for silver linings in the data. Using Davidson as a case study for these issues, this project will draw on the explanations developed by scholars like Bhatti and Pultzer to help explain trends on campus. Furthermore, we will use the data-driven studies published by CIRCLE and Brookings to help contextualize our own community’s civic engagement. Without blindly situating our work within one of the two broader camps, we will draw out the most important and applicable explanations from the existing body of research, apply them to Davidson’s voting patterns in 2022, and provide potential paths forward for a more civic-minded and politically-engaged campus.

Works Cited

Bhatti, Yosef, and Kasper M. Hansen. “Leaving the Nest and the Social Act of Voting: Turnout among First-Time Voters.” Journal of Elections, Public Opinion & Parties, vol. 22, no. 4, Nov. 2012, pp. 380–406. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1080/17457289.2012.721375.

Frey, William H. “Midterm Exit Polls Show That Young Voters Drove Democratic Resistance to the ‘Red Wave.’” Brookings, 18 Nov. 2022, https://www.brookings.edu/research/midterm-exit-polls-show-that-young-voters-drove-democratic-resistance-to-the-red-wave/.

Khalid, Asma, et al. “On The Sidelines Of Democracy: Exploring Why So Many Americans Don’t Vote.” NPR, 10 Sept. 2018. NPR, https://www.npr.org/2018/09/10/645223716/on-the-sidelines-of-democracy-exploring-why-so-many-americans-dont-vote.

“Millions of Youth Cast Ballots, Decide Key 2022 Races.” Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), 9 Nov. 2022, https://circle.tufts.edu/latest-research/millions-youth-cast-ballots-decide-key-2022-races.

Plutzer, Eric. “Becoming a Habitual Voter: Inertia, Resources, and Growth in Young Adulthood.” American Political Science Review, vol. 96, no. 1, Mar. 2002, pp. 41–56. DOI.org (Crossref), https://doi.org/10.1017/S0003055402004227.