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Young and voting
One important take away from this election may be that if you want to significantly increase youth turnout, put marijuana legalization on the ballot. Both nationally and in the important swing states, the percentage of the vote that came from adults under 30 was basically unchanged since the 2008 election. According to the exit polling data from CNN, the youth vote was 18 percent of the electorate in 2008 and 19 percent of the electorate in this past election.
By comparison, in the three states with marijuana legalization initiatives on the ballot, Colorado, Oregon and Washington State, there was a significant surge in the voters age 18-29. In 2008 young people made up just 14 percent of the vote in Colorado but this year it was 20 percent. Even more incredibly, in Washington State the youth vote went from just 10 percent of the electorate last election to 22 percent this time.
| 2008 Youth Vote | 2012 Youth Vote | Increase | |
| National | 18% | 19% | 1% |
| Ohio | 17% | 17% | 0% |
| Virginia | 21% | 19% | -2% |
| Nevada | 17% | 18% | 1% |
| Iowa | 17% | 15% | -2% |
| Florida | 15% | 16% | 1% |
| Wisconsin | 22% | 21% | -1% |
| Marijuana States | |||
| Washington | 10% | 22% | 12% |
| Colorado | 14% | 20% | 6% |
| Oregon | 12% | 17% | 5% |
It is theoretically possible that some unrelated factors or bad data caused there to only be a huge increase in the youth vote in these three states but having marijuana legalization initiatives on the ballot appears by far the most likely cause. Young voters overwhelming support marijuana legalization and it is something they strongly care about. This big increase in the youth vote helped Initiative 502 in Washington state and Amendment 64 in Colorado win by such large margins.
It seems that marijuana legalization is uniquely able to get a large number of young adults to turnout to vote in a way almost no other issue can. Marijuana legalization initiatives appeared to have significantly increased youth turnout in both safe presidential states, like Washington, and also in traditional swing states, like Colorado.
The lesson for politicians and political strategists appears to be that if you want to significantly increase youth turnout, make the election about legalizing marijuana.
Image by maireads under Creative Commons License.
9 Comments
No one could possibly have anticipated that giving people something to vote for would encourage them to vote.
This is the kind of news Dems should listen too if they want to win elections. We need something positive to get people to the polls we cannot count on the GOP attacking Gays, Women and Hispanics the way they did this election even rabid dogs need to sleep.
Jon — here’s a heads up for you. (As if you don’t already have enough things to monitor.)
On Tuesday 57% of the voters in the city of Flint voted to decriminalize possession of recreational amounts of pot. The very next day the police chief comes on the local media and says the pursuit of pot smokers will continue unabated due to what he perceives to be conflicts between local, state and federal laws on maryjane.
Mind you — Flint is in a fiscal hole that is practically unimaginable. We’ve been on the verge of bankruptcy for several years and an emergency financial manager is in place, appointed by the governor. Police have been cut to a ridiculously low level and crimes against persons and property are rampant. And largely unsolved.
And yet in a place where armed robberies, rapes and murders get the official shrug due to lack of money/manpower, there seems to be enough resources to continue the war on harmless, non-violent pot smokers.
We were, and perhaps still are, the murder capitol of the country. Apparently the law enforcement paradigm here is that violent crime will not be addressed until every single, solitary pot smoker is behind bars.
If the forfeiture provisions regarding marijuana were removed from the law, the local police would lack the incentive to pursue pot, and might actually be forced to deal with real crime. As the law reads now, pot remains a cash cow, and petty local level law enforcement officials will let violent crime run rampant in order to keep that cash flowing into their coffers.
Here’s a link to the article wherein the police chief stated it was merely ‘a symbolic vote.’
http://www.mlive.com/news/flint/index.ssf/2012/11/flint_police_will_still_make_m.html#incart_river
I wrote about the flint vote yesterday
My bad. Must have missed it.
Washington State also had a referendum to uphold or cancel the marriage equality bill signed into law. It finally is being re-declared that the marriage equality side won. I wonder if it would have been so without the marijuana crossover from the young voters?
I hope the basic theme of this article is true. I really want to see pot legalized on a par with alcohol. Enough of the police state and the prison industrial complex.
BUT, please look at the “before” data for Washington, Oregon, and Colorado – all of them had youth turnout in 2008 that was significantly lower than the national average. Also, the significant increase in youth turnout for 2012 as against 2008 merely brought their turnouts into the range of the national average.
So, while it’s good news that the marijuana initiatives were probably a very strong factor in increasing youth turnout, we need more to get younger voters to increase their participation.
It would be interesting to see if youth turnout increases more with legalization initiatives than with medicinal MJ initiatives. It seems on the face of it that younger voters are not satisfied with halfway measures, as have the older generation.
Re police chief in Flint Mich. Perhaps the city should calculate how much time and effort is being spent by the chief and dept enforcing federal law, then deduct this amount from pay and appropriations.
Or, just fire the SOB