Young voters: When adulting, choose voting first

For two months now I have been engaged in my sorority’s GOTV efforts. GOTV stands for Get Out the Vote. Because of my efforts to register voters in Ingham County, I read Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson’s June 2024 report, “Michigan’s Youth Vote: Closing the Turnout Gaps,” with a critical eye. This report looked at the 2020 presidential and 2022 midterm elections and young-voter performance. Like, get a ballot, mark it and turn it in to be counted. And young voters — those 18 and 29 —flunked.

Discussing the young voter data in terms of not voting can be confusing. Overall, Michigan had 1.4 million young voters registered for the 2020 presidential election, and about 40 percent did not vote. But that also means that statewide 60% did vote. But consider the data at the county level: Of 83 counties, young voters in fewer than 10 counties voted at the 50% level. But compared to Luce County, in the Upper Peninsula near the rabbit’s tail, where 77% of young voters did not vote, a 50% not-voting rate is great.

There are two kinds of voters: those registered to vote, and voters who actually vote. Nonvoter voters can be seen as the human equivalent of credenza-ware. Credenza-ware is a report that goes to live on a file cabinet, never to be acted on.

The SOS report shows that education is associated with voting. It should be no surprise that in the 2022 midterm election, Washtenaw County, home of Eastern Michigan University and the University of Michigan, tops the list of young voters voting. Another two counties with good numbers are Ottawa County and, in Mid-Michigan, Clinton County.

Ingham County — Spartan Country — showed 62% of young voters did vote in the November 2020 presidential election. That’s pretty good for elections. However, it also means 38 percent of the state capital’s young voters did not vote.

New Yorker magazine politics writer Evan Osnos said some young people think voting is futile because the political system fails them on their issues. Young people live in fear of school mass shootings because, he said, our political representatives refuse to “make any meaningful change.” 

The SOS report said young people want to see structural changes in politics and government, like limiting the terms of U.S. Supreme Court justices, or limiting access to guns, but they believe voting is just one tool to achieve that. Mobilization and organization can also work, they said.

Young people who are not registered voters are not a part of the SOS report, but sometimes young people don’t vote because of they are not registered.

In one outing at my neighborhood barbershop on a busy Friday morning to register voters, I met an 18-year-old Black man. When he arrived, the barber asked if he had driven himself to the shop. The answer was no.

SOS offices register 91% of voters when they get their driver’s licenses and state IDs, but learning to drive is a function of money. Time used to be schools offered driving classes, but the cost of learning to drive has shifted to families. Families must find a driving school for lessons. Not everyone can afford the hundreds of dollars for driving instruction. Even with driving lessons at home, the driving part of the licensing test must be conducted by a driving instructor. Sure, a person can register to vote directly at the municipal clerk’s office, defying the driver’s license model, but, in a sense, these young people cannot afford to register to vote. And registration is necessary to vote.

Why are young voters not pulling the trigger on actual voting? One reason, SOS Benson reported, was needing to rearrange work or school schedules to go to the polls. But there are other ways to vote, including absentee and early voting. Some young voters just don’t know how to vote.

Another young Black man, leaving the barbershop with a fly cut, said he was registered to vote, but when asked if he planned to vote in the upcoming primary election, his face went all question mark: What’s a primary?

Whose job is it to educate voters about our system of voting? Candidates campaign to get votes for themselves, specifically, and the best indicator of who will vote is who did vote. Young voters are a blank slate of voting activity. Political campaigns, including my Lansing City Charter Commission campaign, go after people who have a record of voting.

That’s old people, my OG husband pointed out. We have skin in the game with health care and income and other entitlements from our government. 

“Young people need to learn how to make informed and reasoned decisions for the public good,” explains the Michigan Department of Education. That’s why high school civics class provides political and American government education. This must-pass class for graduation is required by the Michigan Merit Curriculum. 

However, with senioritis being what it is, how much attention is paid in civics class? Is a solution taking civics before senior year — and making registering to vote an assignment? The state allows voter pre-registration at age 16, up to two years before the legal voting age of 18. Most high school seniors are already 18 in senior year. Can voting in an election be the high school capstone experience?

The transition from child to adult can be overwhelming. It can be like starring in the film titled “Everything Everywhere All at Once.” Most adult privileges kick in at 18: without parental approval, a person can vote, marry, drive at night with a passenger, apply for a passport and buy a handgun from a friend. At age 21, people can buy from a gun dealer and purchase liquor and a joint.

The point is, young voters, as you pick and choose adulting behavior, choose voting first.

(Dedria Humphries Barker is the author of “Mother of Orphans: The True and Curious Story of Irish Alice, A Colored Man’s Widow.” Her column appears monthly.)