Large numbers of young people registered to vote before Election Day. According to Vote.org, as of September, the nonpartisan registration platform had registered more than 1 million voters for the 2024 election cycle, 79% of whom were under the age of 35.
This year, more than 8 million Americans aged 18 and 19 will be eligible to vote, and as long as these young people cast their ballots, they will have tremendous power to influence the outcome of the election.
Young voters tend to be first-time voters, and the group is often confused by some voting procedures, election experts say. Here are two of the biggest:
Young and new voters may not be able to register in states where their votes could decide elections.
Young voters and new voters could make the difference between victory and defeat on Election Day — and if they are new residents of a presidential battleground state, they can take advantage of the opportunity to cast their vote in a presidential battleground state.
Take Pennsylvania, for example. The Pennsylvania Association of Independent Colleges and Universities reports that 21,000 students transfer from their home state to a Pennsylvania college each year. These thousands of freshmen represent an attractive voting bloc. In 2020, Joe Biden won Pennsylvania by just 81,660 votes over Donald Trump.
So if you’re an American college student new to a state, know that your vote could be a game-changer. As long as you have been a resident for a certain number of days, you are eligible to vote in the state where you attended college.
“The basic question is, ‘Oh, I went to school here, but I’m from a different place? Can I vote here? The answer is almost always yes,” said Eric Daniels, director of state and organizing organizations for Next Generation America. is helping college campuses in eight states register voters. “This is definitely an issue when we first register to vote.”
To be eligible to vote in a specific voting jurisdiction, you must live in your district, usually 30 days before the election, but residency rules vary by state.
In other words, even if you are a new student, you may have met your new state’s residency requirements by now. This is important if you happen to live in key battleground states like Pennsylvania, Michigan, or Nevada—where registration deadlines are approaching quickly.
Daniels says you just need to make sure you have a physical address in the state where you’re registered to vote. For example, when registering young voters in North Carolina, “we met a lot of people who lived in South Carolina. So we made sure they either lived on NC State’s campus or were commuting from other parts of North Carolina, ” said Daniels.
If you are a first-time voter in a state registering to vote on Election Day, you may need to provide proof of residency, such as a utility bill or bank statement showing your name and address.
Daniels noted that it’s much easier for young people to vote in person than absentee. Some colleges even have polling locations on campus. Daniels said he was “very politically active in college, but I could ask for a Missouri ballot to be mailed to me and then mail it back as an 18-year-old — that’s not going to happen.”
Keep in mind that choosing your student address or hometown address as your voting residence will also affect how you vote. If you use a family member’s home address as your voting residence, you may need to vote by mail or return to the county to vote in person.
They may also accidentally bring the wrong ID.
Once you go to the polls, you’ll want to double-check what your state requires you to bring to the polls. You may be bringing the wrong ID, which could jeopardize your vote.
Most states require voters to bring proof of identification to vote in person or provide an ID number when voting by mail — in 21 states, this requires a photo ID.
Some states allow you to use your student ID, but others do not. As Adrienne Quinn Martin, chairwoman of the Hood County Democratic Party in Texas, told the state’s Huffington Post, “You can use your pistol license as ID, but not your student ID. .
In Texas, instead, you can bring your Texas driver’s license, passport or certificate of citizenship, and other forms of authorized identification.
Daniels said a photo ID requirement may be easier in states like Nevada that allow multiple forms of ID, while it could be more confusing for voters in states like North Carolina where laws are constantly changing.
“For the past decade, North Carolina has been fighting a battle over photo ID required to vote,” he said.
North Carolina voters didn’t need photo ID until the Republican-controlled Legislature passed a law in 2018, but now they do. Just this past September, the North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled that people could not use virtual college ID cards because they were originally said to be viable voting IDs. Daniels explained that you now need a student ID card with a photo and expiration date if you want to use it to vote.
North Carolina voters without authorized ID can still fill out an exception form with their ballot if they have a “reasonable impediment” in showing a photo ID.
When in doubt, check what your state requires you to bring to the polls on Election Day.
Knowing what you don’t need to bring to the polls can also put your mind at ease.
If you are registering to vote for the first time or renewing your registration, you will receive a voter registration card that will show the location of your voting precinct and confirm that you are registered to vote.
Quinn said she gets a lot of questions from people about whether they need the card to vote: “They say, ‘I can’t vote because I don’t know what I did with my voter registration. [card]”But the good news is that the voter registration card only confirms that you are registered to vote. You don’t need to take it with you to vote.
The best way to avoid surprises with your ballot is to give yourself as much time as possible.
“If you can vote early, I always stress doing so, not only because the lines are usually shorter and there are more options, but it’s more flexible,” Daniels advises. “But if something goes wrong, you also have more time to correct the situation.”
