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Younger voters are apparently heeding urgings to vote early. A Tufts University study finds that, as of Oct. 14, over a half a million more voters aged 18 to 29 had already voted in this year’s election in 13 key states compared to the same date in 2016.
In other words, ten times more younger voters have voted by absentee ballot or through early voting than at this point four years ago, 606,427 compared to 57,888, according to the university’s Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning & Engagement, which tracks the voting patterns of younger people.
“In nearly every state we’re tracking, the number of absentee and early votes cast as of October 14, 2020, is far higher than at the same date in 2016. That’s to be expected, given the greater emphasis on mail-in voting this year due to the pandemic,” the center said on its website.
The increase is particularly striking in several states. In Florida, 110,912 younger voters have cast their ballots, compared to 14,241 in 2016. In Michigan, 76,279 have voted, compared to 2,838 in the last presidential election.
Younger voters could play a key role in states where polls show razor-thin margins in the presidential and key Senate elections a little more than two weeks from now. The Tufts center in September found that more 18- to 29-year-olds had already registered to vote than on Election Day in 2016, in 21 of 27 states with available data.
