The Youth Vote: Was It Better Back Then?

Boomers, Millennials and the Ballot Box

V. Richard Haro/Fort Collins Coloradoan, via Associated Press

A Colorado State University student heads to a voting booth on Oct. 22, the first day of in-person voting. 

So, the election is approaching and you're a boomer. Many of the issues that will have a direct impact on you - Social Security, Medicare, government pensions - are likely to be affected by who wins the presidency.

You're certainly going to vote, but you're frustrated because your adult children may not. They do not have as much at stake.

Of course you'll want to shame them into it and you communicate this in a way that they can't possibly ignore.

You text them.

“Vote! When we were your age, we always voted :(”

Wrong.

Resend.

When boomers were their age, they voted at almost the exact rate that the young do now.

In 1976, when boomers were between 18 and 30 years old, their turnout rate was 50 percent. In 2008, 51 percent of millennials - ages 18 to 28 at the time - voted.

And in 1972, when boomers had many incentives to go to the polls, including the Vietnam-era draft, the numbers still weren't too different. A total of 54 percent of boomers voted in the Nixon-McGovern election, versus 49 percent of millennials in the 2004 Bush-Kerry race.

Even Peter Levine, an expert on young American voting patterns who compiled these statistics at my request, was surprised at the results he produced.

“I would have guessed there's more of a youth voting problem today,” he said. As the director of the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, a nonpartisan research institute based at Tufts University, he specializes in civic issues affecting young people.

“The fact that they're right on par surprised me,” he said. “There's a lot of rhetoric about back in the day. I'm delighted.”

Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement

Even in 1972, during the Vietnam-era draft, turnout by boomers was not enormously higher than it was for millennials when they got a chance to vote.

It is not too surprising that as people age, they're more likely to vote. In the 2008 Obama-McCain election, 69 percent of boomers - aged 44 to 62 at the time - turned out compared to the 51 percent of 18- to 28-year-olds.

Connie Flanagan, a developmental psychologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, says voting is habit forming. “Once you've made your first vote, it becomes part of your routine,” she said. “Everyone you know votes. It feels like a moral and civic obligation.”

The young tend to have more chaotic lives, she says; classes on some days, part-time jobs on others, active social lives.

“As you get older, there is more of a steady rhythm to your life,” she said. “I'm an example - this afternoon my husband and I have made an appointment to vote early.”

Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement

The turnout by boomers and millennials at comparable ages has been fairly similar.

Mr. Levine points out that there are more issues to unite the boomers - born during the 1946 to 1964 post World War II population explosion - than the young. “A young person may be anything from a medical student to a prison inmate, and there's not lots of commonality of interests there,” he said. “Relationships are very varied and miscellaneous.”

While some younger voters might share an interest in military service or Pell grants, it's not as far-reaching as for older voters.

“No matter what your status as a boomer,” he said, “you're concerned with Social Security and Medicare - which gives a lot of people a personal reason to vote.”

According to a November 2011 poll by the Pew Research Center, 13 percent of millennials name Social Security as one of the issues that matters most to them, compared to 33 percent of boomers.

The 69 percent voting rate for boomers in the 2008 presidential race was the highest since 1972, the earliest comparable year and the first time eligibility was lowered to the current age of 18.

The number of boomers registered to vote in the 2008 election - 75 percent - is also the highest, except for 87 percent in 1972, which was an exceptional year for several reasons, including the draft and the lowering of the voting age.

But in 2008, 18- to 28-year-olds actually registered at a higher rate (61 percent) than the boomers of the same age for the Carter-Ford race in 1976 (58 percent).

“This is such good news,” Mr. Levine said. “Millennials have been getting such a bad rap.”

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