"Why should I vote?"
When all the campaign ads have been aired and op-eds have been published, when all the debates have been held and viral videos have been shared, this is the one question left unanswered for many young Americans.
Why should I vote when it feels like it won’t make a difference? Why should I vote when the candidates don’t represent my views or my values or my identities? Why should I vote when there are so many other things I could be doing with my time?
Too often, people like me — parents, professors, oldsters — answer this question with platitudes. "Because the future is in the hands of your generation!" "Because young people need to make their voices heard!"
There is truth to these platitudes, of course. In this nation and in every nation, each generation eventually inherits the task of forming "a more perfect union" from the generations that came before.
Yet for older Americans to hold younger ones responsible for fixing the problems they failed to fix, or to scold them for being skeptical about voting, isn’t just unfair — it’s also unlikely to move anybody to action. If I were inheriting the hot mess facing our nation today — widening wealth inequality, a mental health crisis fueled by unregulated social media, a terrifying epidemic of gun violence, an existential climate crisis and a political system that seems incapable of meeting these challenges — I’d be skeptical, too.
So it is with great respect for the lived experience of young Americans that I’ll offer a different answer to the question with which this column began. In fact, I’ll offer five of them — and while they may sound like platitudes, I promise I’ll bring the receipts.
Why should you vote?
1. Because voting has never been easier.
Those of us who study and teach about democracy often focus on the many barriers that make it harder for Americans to vote. This focus is understandable: voting rights have been a defining fault line of political conflict in the United States ever since the constitutional framers made the fateful decision not to establish an affirmative right to vote, instead leaving each state to determine the "times, places, and manner" of elections. This conflict is alive and well today, as Americans contend with partisan efforts to make it harder to vote such as North Carolina’s new voter ID requirement.
Yet for most people in most places, voting has never been easier than it is today. Between 2000 and 2024, the number of states offering early or mail-in voting nearly doubled, from 24 states representing 40% of the voting-age population to 47 states representing 97%. And for all the well-founded concern over new restrictions adopted by some states since the 2020 election, there have been even more laws enacted by state legislatures to expand or improve voting access, according to the Voting Rights Lab.
In North Carolina, eligible voters can cast their ballots in one of three easy ways (see information at the bottom of this page). Yes, presenting a voter ID has introduced an additional step that will impact some North Carolinians more than others, and there is ample reason to oppose this policy on principle. But the most principled thing we can do right now is to demonstrate that voter ID will not keep us from turning out. Duke students can use multiple forms of ID (including their physical DukeCards) to satisfy the new requirement, and those who don’t have an ID can pick one up quickly and easily between now and Election Day.
2. Because your vote could decide this election
I hear often from young voters that they feel like their vote won’t matter — either because they believe it won’t impact the outcome of the election or because they believe the outcome of the election won’t impact their lives.
I share the frustration many feel with America’s rigid two-party system, and I strongly support reforms to bring a more diverse range of parties, candidates, and voters into our elections. But while the choice produced by the two-party system is limited, it is still a choice–and in this election, the choice could not be starker. On virtually every issue — from climate action to reproductive rights to U.S. policy toward Israel and the Palestinians — the policies the two leading presidential candidates would pursue would put our nation, and the world, on two drastically different paths.
And in many elections — including this one — the outcome could come down to a handful of votes per precinct in key states. In 2020, former President Donald Trump won North Carolina by only 1.34 percentage points — an average of fewer than 28 votes per precinct. The 2024 election is shaping up to be even closer, with Trump leading Vice President Kamala Harris by less than a percentage point in most polling averages. North Carolina could truly swing either way — and young voters could make the difference.
Of course, not voting — or voting for a longshot third party — is also a choice, and for some it may be a principled one. I won’t debate the principle here, but as a matter of math, it is a choice that makes it more likely the candidate you support the least will win. In fact, many analysts believe the 2024 election will be decided not by committed voters who are still making up their minds about how to vote, but by Americans who are still making up their minds about whether to vote at all.
3. Because voting gives you a seat at the table
You’ve probably heard it said that "if you don’t vote, you don’t have a right to complain." I disagree: you always have a right to complain.
But there is solid evidence that if you don’t vote, your complaints are more likely to fall on deaf ears. How responsive policymakers are to the preferences of their constituents is a perennial debate in political science, but recent studies have found that changes in constituent preferences lead to changes in legislators’ policy positions, that elected officials are more responsive to their constituency when they’re up for reelection, and that legislators are more responsive to voters than to the population at large.
These studies are consistent with my personal experience working in a congressional office for nearly 15 years. We tried our best to represent the views and interests of all constituents, and we never once asked whether or for whom they had voted. But there is no question we were most highly attuned to those who were most highly engaged in the political process — as advocates, as activists, and, yes, as voters. We didn’t always do what they asked, but we were more likely to listen to them in the first place.
4. Because (most of) your peers are doing it
Yes, young Americans vote at lower rates than older generations. There are many reasons for this — and many reasons I hope it is changing.
The last three elections give us hope that it is. In the 2020 presidential election, turnout among 18-29 year-olds surpassed 50% nationwide — an 11-point increase over 2016 — and reached 55% in North Carolina. Youth turnout doubled between the 2014 and 2018 midterm elections, though it fell off modestly in 2022. Overall, more young people are voting today than at any time in recent memory. And with 41 million members of Gen Z eligible to vote in 2024, this is the first presidential election in which their vote could be truly decisive.
In fact, Gen Z is doing more than voting: its members are running for office at the state or local level and increasingly in Congress too. You don’t have to look too far for inspiring (and perhaps rivalry-provoking?) examples of this: a few years ago, a UNC senior won a seat on the Chapel Hill Town Council by 24 votes!
5. Because voting is the ultimate (civic) gateway drug
Finally, you should vote not instead of the many other ways you could choose to participate in our democracy, but because voting also makes you more likely to participate in other ways.
A strong body of evidence shows that Americans who vote in one election are more likely to vote in future elections, and that voting is correlated positively with other forms of civic participation such as donating to candidates, contacting elected officials, or joining protests and demonstrations. These diverse forms of participation enrich our lives and strengthen the fabric of our communities–but the people most likely to undertake them are not representative of society as a whole. By opening a gateway to broader civic participation for Americans who have been marginalized from power, voting is an essential means of reducing political inequality and moving our nation closer to a truly representative democracy.
For all these reasons and more, your vote matters…despite, you know, everything. Early voting has already begun. What are you waiting for?
Asher D. Hildebrand is a Professor of the Practice in the Sanford School of Public Policy. Prior to joining the Duke faculty, he served for nearly 15 years as a staff member in the United States Congress. This piece is part of the "Virtues of Democracy" column, a series of op-eds by faculty and student contributors across Trinity College and the Sanford School of Public Policy. The column typically runs on Tuesdays or Thursdays.
Voters in North Carolina can vote in one of three easy ways:
- By mail. Voters may request an absentee ballot until October 29 and return it by mail or in person to their county board of elections by 5:00 p.m. on Election Day (Tuesday, November 5).
- In person during early voting. Voters can vote in-person during the early voting period (October 17 to November 2) at any early voting site in their county–including the Karsh Alumni and Visitors Center on Duke’s campus. Even if you didn’t register to vote before the October 11 deadline, you can still register and vote on the same day during early voting!
- In person on Election Day. Voters who registered to vote by October 11 can vote in-person on Election Day (Tuesday, November 5, from 6:30 a.m. to 7:30 p.m.) in their home precinct, which will be at a different location than the early voting site (look up your Election Day voting site here).
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