LANSING, Mich. (Michigan News Source) – A recent study by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), a branch of Tufts University, reported that more Michigan voters, aged 18 to 29, turned up at polls during the 2022 midterm election than in any of the other 39 states that were studied. The remaining states, including Washington D.C. and Wisconsin, had incomplete data.

CIRCLE published numbers that showed Michigan’s youth voter turnout was 36.5% in 2022 with the next highest states being Maine, Minnesota and Oregon. The numbers for youth turnout in Michigan in 2022 were almost 4% higher than in 2018.

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The CIRCLE study based their research on voter file data and not exit polling. The age-specific voter file data was aggregated by Catalist, a national database collected from election officials.

MSU Political Science Professor Sarah Reckhow, a member of the MSU vote committee, told Lansing’s WILX that abortion is what drove the youth voters to the polls. She said, “It wasn’t necessarily about one particular candidate, or one particular race at the state level, or for congress, it was a lot about Proposal Three.”

Proposal Three, the “Right to Reproductive Freedom Initiative” which passed after the midterm election, was a voter initiative that enshrined reproductive rights and abortion into the Michigan Constitution. It was heavily pushed by Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer and the Michigan Democratic Party during the midterm campaigns.

In addition to abortion, Michigan State University student voter Myron Ocansey told WILX that she was also concerned with issues like COVID-19 and the George Floyd protests. During that time she said she realized “I have to take more of an active part in democracy.” CIRCLE reported that other social issues in the country that drove the youth vote across the nation included healthcare, inflation and social equity.

The Detroit Free Press had reported in March that while the trend of older voters having the highest turnout rate of voters in Michigan still held true for he 2022 midterms, the state’s youngest voters made the biggest gains in turnout as “key contests for statewide offices, control of the state Legislature and the future of abortion access hung in the balance.”

Democratic Governor Gretchen Whitmer had said about the youth voters at her State of the State address in January, “They’re fighting for their future. Record turnout on campuses last November proved it.”

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As Whitmer pointed out, the college campuses, especially Michigan State University and the University of Michigan had a lot to do with turning out the the youth vote. Stories of long lines on colleges campuses were reported by media outlets with many students registering on Election Day. About one-fifth of voters who registered on Election Day registered in Ann Arbor and East Lansing. A dozen precincts in Ann Arbor had three out of four 18 to 21-year-old registered voters casting a ballot and in MSU’s East Lansing, there were seven precincts where the youth vote exceeded 75%.

According to the Detroit Free Press, young women aged 18 to 21-years-old in Michigan recorded the largest gain in voter turnout, followed closely by young men. About 37% of those young women voted in the 2022 midterm (up ten percentage points from 2018) and 28% of the young men. The Free Press measured voter turnout by looking at the number of voters broken down by age and gender who cast a ballot in the last three midterm elections relative to their share of the population.

Nationally, CIRCLE reports that the national youth turnout was 23% for the 2022 midterms, lower than the historic 2018 cycle (28%) which broke records, but much higher than in 2014 when only 13% of the youth voted. They also reported that many of the states with the highest youth turnout have policies like automatic and same-day registration that make it easier for young people to register and vote. Many of the states with lower turnout do not have these policies in place or have restrictions like voter ID laws.

CIRCLE researchers reported that young voters were the only age group to cite abortion as the issue that most influenced their vote; 80% of youth who want abortion to be legal voted for a Democrat; and 89% of youth who want it to be illegal voted for a Republican.

Inequities in election participation also appeared in the CIRCLE research. They said, “Some youth of color and other young people, like those without college experience, who have fewer opportunities for electoral learning and engagement, often participate at lower rates. This can lead to them being underrepresented in the electorate relative to their share of the population, which prevents us from having a truly equitable and inclusive democracy.”

Their analysis found that “White youth – especially White women – were overrepresented among youth who cast a ballot, while Black men were underrepresented. In addition, only 12% of youth who voted in 2022 have no college experience, despite that group making up 40% of the population.”