CIRCLE report says young voters may have big impact in Georgia

Younger voters in Georgia have registered to vote at a higher rate than in any other state, compared with the last presidential election. That growing voting bloc may help sway the key races for president, two U.S. senators and two seats in the House, according to a new report from the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University.

In 2016, Georgia youth voters picked Democrats by a 30-point margin compared to the overall electorate, according to CIRCLE. And this segment of the population is growing faster in Georgia than anywhere else: among those 18-24, there were 34 percent more registered voters in September 2020 compared to November 2016. That contrasts with another swing state, Ohio, where there are 20 percent fewer youth voters registered this year compared with four years ago.

If they turn out, youth voters also have a chance to add more color to the state's majority white electorate. More than half — 53 percent — of younger people in Georgia are Black or Latino. But there are hurdles for increasing the turnout of younger voters. The state has placed restrictions on voting that are more likely to affect younger voters, CIRCLE says. That includes a "use it or lose it" law that's been used to purge more than 300,000 voters who hadn't voted recently. The state's early voter registration deadline — 29 days before the election — also impacts younger voters more than the general electorate, according to the report.

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See the full report here.