9.18 Myth about Voting by 17-Year-Olds

It is unlikely that a nationwide vote for President would result in a mad rush by states to lower the voting age to 17.

In any event, lowering the voting age to 17 would have only a marginal effect on the electorate.

For one thing, 17-year-olds represent only about 1.2% of the U.S. population.

More importantly, relatively few young people vote, compared to the rest of the population.

Table 9.36 shows the percentage of the U.S. population who voted in the November 2020 general election.[395]

Table 9.36 Percentage of population who voted in 2020, by age

As can be seen from the table, the percentage of older Americans who voted in the November 2020 general election was:

• 70% for those aged 75 and over
• 73% for those aged 65–74
• 68% for those aged 55–64.

The percentage of younger Americans was considerably lower, and the percentage declined sharply by age:

• 49% for those aged 20
• 47% for those aged 19
• 40% for those aged 18.

This sharp decline from age 20 to 19, and from age 19 to 18, suggests that considerably fewer than 40% of 17-year-olds would be likely to vote if they were permitted to do so.

If, for the sake of argument, a third of the 1.2% of the population whose age is between 17 and 18 were to vote, that would increase the electorate by 0.4%.

If a candidate had a three-to-two lead among this 0.4% sliver of the electorate (that is, a lead of 0.24% to 0.16%), that would translate into a net lead of 0.08% in favor of that candidate.

Moreover, as a practical matter, there is little support for giving the vote to 17-year-olds in the first place. For example, in a statewide vote in 2020, California voters rejected a constitutional amendment to allow 17-year-olds who would become 18 by the time of the next general election to vote in primary elections and special elections.[396]

The 26^th Amendment (lowering the voting age from 21 to 18) was ratified by the states in 1971. However, the newly enfranchised voters (aged 20, 19, and 18) did not have any noteworthy effect in the 1972 presidential election. As the Washington Post noted:

“In the end, Nixon wound up getting nearly half of the vote of the young first-time voters.”[397]

Although the 26^th Amendment does not prevent states from lowering their voting age below 18, there is little reason to expect that to happen, and even less reason to be concerned if it did.

Footnotes