Support for Vote 16 is much higher among young people, women, and people of color.
Newly released poll results from the University of Maryland Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement provide important insights about how and where to target Vote 16 campaigns.
The success of the women’s suffrage movement contains important lessons for Vote 16.
In the late 19th century, women’s suffrage activists faced formidable challenges in their efforts to win the right to vote. Public opinion polling did not exist at the time, but it is safe to say women’s suffrage would not have polled well. Women’s suffrage activists, however, were not deterred.
They realized that for a variety of reasons, the western United States was a particularly good place to win women’s suffrage in the late 19th century. As Dawn Teele documents in “Forging the Franchise,” the combination of high political competition and political parties that saw potential advantage in mobilizing women created conditions in which suffrage campaigns could be successful.
The women’s suffrage movement was always active in all areas of the country which was essential to its eventual success passing a constitutional amendment. But they also made decisions along the way to focus on specific strategic campaigns in places with favorable conditions where victories could serve as stepping stones to national movement goals. They did that to great effect in the American west where a series of state level victories in the late 19th century and early 20th century laid the groundwork for the 19th amendment.
Polling provides critical information about where to target early Vote 16 campaigns.
Just as the women’s suffrage movement had great momentum all around the country in the late 19th century, the Vote 16 movement also has incredible support all across America today. Vote 16 legislation has been introduced at the state level in New Mexico, Oregon, Maryland, Virginia, Massachusetts, and New York in recent years.
There are active municipal efforts in many places including Culver City, New York City, Kansas City, Boston, Rockville, Washington DC, and more.
All this activity is great for the Vote 16 movement and campaigns often build power for the movement in the long term even if they fall short of achieving their policy goals in the short term.
Building towards a constitutional amendment with local Vote 16 wins.
The women’s suffrage movement built towards a constitutional amendment by winning at the state level in the late 1800s and early 1900s. The Vote 16 movement can build towards a similar victory in the 21st century by winning Vote 16 policy at the local level in the 2020s and early 2030s. The number of Americans who can vote at 16 is going to dramatically increase this year as cities like Oakland, Berkeley, and Newark implement their Vote 16 policies. Newark alone has nearly 10,000 young people who will be enfranchised. What would be possible for the Vote 16 movement if 1 million Americans had the experience of voting at 16 or 17 before 2030? This kind of growth is possible through winning strategically targeted local campaigns.
Vote 16 activists have a lot of persuasion to do…
Polling we have conducted at the University of Maryland Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement provides critical information that Vote 16 movement leaders can use to inform and target their strategy for building power for the Vote 16 suffrage movement by winning Vote 16 policies at the local level. Our poll with the Washington Post was conducted by telephone September 22-27, 2022, among a random sample of 810 registered voters in the state of Maryland. Interviews were conducted by live interviewers, with 79 percent conducted on cellphones and 21 percent on land-lines. Overall, the results have a margin of error of plus or minus four percentage points. Sampling and data collection was conducted by Braun Research of Princeton, N.J.
Our poll confirms past analyses that Vote 16 advocates still need to do a lot of persuasion to win Vote 16 policy at the state or national level (although luckily for them, message testing shows that persuasion on Vote 16 is possible).
…but if Vote 16 campaigns find their supporters, it is possible to win right NOW in many places.
When we dig into subgroups, it is clear that support for Vote 16 in concentrated in particular groups of people.
18-29 year olds are just over 3 times more likely than voters over 65 to support lowering the voting age. Even voters in their 30s are far more likely to support Vote 16 than people 40 and over.
Women are also far more likely to support Vote 16 than men.
People of color are far more likely to support Vote 16 than white people.
The strategic takeaway for Vote 16 campaigns is clear - target cities with disproportionately large populations of young people, women, and people of color in states where the legal environment allows municipalities to lower the voting age. These are going to be the places where Vote 16 is most likely to succeed in the short term.
Many cities in these states can lower the voting age to 16 with a city council vote. Places that have city council members who are particularly connected to young people, women, or people of color are places where Vote 16 campaigns are more likely to be successful.
Similarly, if we are assessing cities where a Vote 16 change requires a public referendum, activists should be attentive to whether the electorate will include the most likely Vote 16 supporters. Places like Culver City and San Francisco (where Vote 16 referenda have gained over 48% support in recent years) that have elections at the same time as federal general elections are going to be much more likely to pass Vote 16 policy at the ballot than places like Rockville Maryland where a recent Vote 16 ballot measure in an off-year municipal election with a far older electorate only garnered 28% of the vote.
Lastly, these data also suggest that direct experience with Vote 16 policies is itself persuasive. Prince Georges County - home to four of the ten cities in the country that have lowered the voting age - has much higher support for Vote 16 than voters in other parts of the state with similar partisan identity.
What we can do with this knowledge
There is so much that can be done with the knowledge from this poll to help the Vote 16 movement make the strategic moves it needs to make now to be in position to win nationwide Vote 16 in the coming years. Just as the women’s suffrage movement targeted its efforts to win suffrage in places with favorable political environments and public opinion, activists can do the same for Vote 16 in the present day. In the coming months, we are exploring efforts to field a new statewide poll in New Jersey and develop a list of the cities where the data suggests Vote 16 would be most likely to pass. Please share YOUR ideas with us for how we can continue learning together from these data!
Sam Novey is Chief Strategist at the University of Maryland Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement.
Gregory Isaiah Espinoza (PhD Student, UMD Department of Government and Politics) and Woohyeon Kim (PhD Student, UMD Department of Government and Politics) also contributed to this analysis.