Oklahoma Watch: Turnout shows younger generations risk losing political influence
Keaton Ross Oklahoma Watch
Oliver Bridges wasted little time registering to vote.
The 19-year-old Noble resident said he submitted his application a few months after his 18th birthday in October 2021. He has voted in three statewide elections the past 12 months.
State voting data show that Bridges is an outlier.
Less than 25% of registered voters age 30 and younger cast a ballot last November, according to an Oklahoma Watch analysis of Oklahoma State Election Board data. Fewer than 10% of them voted on March 7 to decide State Question 820, an initiative seeking to legalize recreational marijuana and streamline the expungement of certain marijuana-related convictions.
Voters soundly rejected the question, which appeared as a rare standalone item on the ballot.
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The issue isnt unique to Oklahoma. In neighboring Texas, 25% of voters ages 18-29 cast a ballot in the 2022 midterm election. Young voter turnout nationwide dipped slightly last year compared to 2018, a year that saw mostly strong participation nationwide, according to data compiled by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University.
If the low turnout trend continues, the younger generation risks having less of a voice on policies that impact their day-to-day life, Rose State College political science professor Emily Stacey said.
If youre not participating from 18 to 30, then someone who is older and at a different point of life than you, and probably makes more money than you, is deciding what laws and policies you live by, Stacey said. Thats a really dangerous, commonsensical thing that I think a lot of the youth dont understand.
An Oklahoma Watch review found that only seven of Oklahomas 149 state representatives and senators are 30 or younger. The average age of members of both the House and the Senate is just shy of 53. State senators must be at least 25, and House members at least 21, at the time of their election.
Lawmakers recently have zeroed in on policies affecting younger Oklahomans, including passing bills to ban nearly all abortions statewide and restrict access to gender-affirming care. A sweeping education reform package that proposes incremental teacher pay raises and tax credits for parents who home school or send their children to private schools is working its way through the Legislature.
If the younger generation is not only not voting but not showing up to these political parties and not going through the motions of the candidate selection process or becoming a candidate themselves, were going to see less future-forward policies, Stacey said.
Many Oklahomans had no say in choosing their state representative last November, as 69% of state House and Senate races were decided during the April filing period or primary races.
William Weber of Del City said he fears theres become a self-feeding cycle of young people questioning whether their vote matters and opting not to participate. Weber, 26, said there should be more communication in future elections about the collective power of the young voting block.
Your individual vote may not matter that much unless its one of those historic occasions where the margin is one vote, Weber said. But when too many people have that mindset, that does matter.
Young people face inherent challenges to becoming civically engaged, said Peter de Guzman, an assistant researcher with the CIRCLE at Tufts University. They tend to move more often, have less political experience and disproportionately face transportation issues getting to the polls.
Certain preregistration and online registration policies have proven successful in other states, de Guzman said. For instance, his team found that youth voter registration ahead of the 2020 presidential election was 10% higher in states with fully online voter registration.
Oklahoma lawmakers authorized online voter registration in 2015, but a series of technical delays has delayed the project. While prospective voters have been able to fill out an application online since 2018, those who use that method must print out the form, sign it and deliver it to their county election board office.
More than one-third of Oklahomans age 18 to 30 are not registered to vote, according to a comparison of state voter registration data with 2020 U.S. census figures.
We think of online voter registration as a leaky funnel, where people can drop off at points in the process because they encounter a barrier, de Guzman said. Making it as streamlined as they can will make things a lot smoother for the potential registrants.
Cece Kuper, a 24-year-old voter who works for a technology company in Oklahoma City, said ideally the state would implement an automatic voter registration system. But making the current registration system entirely digital would be a positive development for youth civic engagement, she said.
Thats where they lose us, Kuper said of the requirement that online forms be printed and manually delivered. This generation is very much online as a whole.
Alex McEwen, a 24-year-old voter from Moore who voted for the first time in the 2020 presidential election, said the top priority for young people should be to remind their family members and friends of elections and encourage them to vote, she said.
I see a lot of people in my age group and friend group talk about politics, but if youre not actively using your right to vote, youre not using your full voice, she said.
One student-led group civic engagement group at the University of Oklahoma is trying to make it easier for their college peers to cast a ballot.
Michael Stoyak, programming chair for OK Votes, said the group has worked to establish a polling place on campus and cancel classes on general election days. While efforts to make the 2020 presidential election day a student holiday proved successful on many campuses, fewer university administrators agreed to a similar arrangement for the 2022 midterm elections.
One of the reasons I think students might not be getting out to vote is on Tuesday there are a lot of classes, and sometimes professors dont always give exemptions for students, or students might feel as though their professor is not going to give them an exemption to go vote, he said. That has been an issue.
State law requires employers to provide up to two hours of time off to vote on election day or during early voting, but there are several exceptions. Time off may not be granted if theres a three-hour voting period before or after an employees shift, and the employer may alter a workers shift to accommodate voting. Oklahoma also offers no-excuse mail-in absentee voting for all state and local elections.
Some young people might find it difficult just due to scheduling, but in all reality, I believe voting can be easy, Bridges said. But he said young people often lack the confidence and resources needed to make an informed decision.
Weber,
Thursday, April 6, 2023 at 3:40 am