While politicians have been busy campaigning for the upcoming midterm elections, many young people still aren’t registered to vote.
What is it that’s stopping young people from voting?
Spencer Lindsay, assistant professor of practice at the University of Arizona, has noticed a few trends.
“We can imagine apathy being a big reason,” Lindsay says, “that there's a kind of dissatisfaction with the political system that leads youth voters not to want to show up.”
A 2023 study from Pew Research found 79% of Americans described U.S. politics with negative words like “divisive,” “corrupt,” “messy,” and “polarized.” That fragmentation is leading young people to tune out politically.
To find out more about the political indifference among the young electorate, we spoke to several young people around Tucson about what’s keeping them out of the ballot box.
This is the first of AZPM’s Student Perspectives series, a four-part report on the issues that voters between the ages of 18-29 really care about in the run-up to the Nov. 3 election – or, in this particular case, the issues that are causing them not to care.