Do Millennials Care About Voting in Elections?

In the past 2014 mid election, 143 million people who were eligible to vote, did not. Making it the lowest voter participation in 72 years. In addition to it being a low year, only 21.3% of Millennials (people born 1980-1996) did not vote in the past term.

Why is it that Millennials are so low in participation?

Is it that Millennials don’t care about elections?

Will voters election continue to drop?

At this point, we are not able to completely answer some of these questions. It’s impossible to tell the future if voting will continue to drop however, by analyzing the past, we can make sense of the present. In terms of Millennials, here are a few reasons why they have not been as active in past elections:

Lower Voter Turnout Has Been A Generation Consistent Thing

According to AP News, there has been a low turnout for the past several electoral votes for presidential elections. Hence, Millennials not showing up, just reflects what their parents did in the previous generations. Across the board, people have been participating less in current elections.

Younger Individuals Tend to Vote Less

While it may appear to be a generation problem, it turns out that people who are younger generally vote less. Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg, the director of The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning stated that “Young people in general have always had a much lower turnout than older adults, as we’ve seen over and over.” It’s easy to point a finger that the Millennial generation for their lack of participation, but the irony is, those accusing probably had the same turnout when they were Millennials age.

Data is Not 100% accurate

For finding the demographics that participate in the election process, data is not 100% accurate. Hence, sources can suggest roughly certain numbers, but they can’t say for certain its accuracy. There are many articles on this, some claiming complete fraud.