HARRISBURG, PA (WENY) -- In 2020, young voters broke records—with the highest percentage of 18 to 24 year old voting that year since the 1970s. The age demographic still lags in engagement compared to other groups though.
“Everyone that I know who it has come up- voting- I have been like, are you registered?” said Julia Fechl, a Harris supporter who lives in Lancaster City. "You need to register."
Eligible Pennsylvanians have until 11:59 tonight to register to vote. The State Department reported this morning that 9,088,583 Pennsylvanians are registered to vote. That’s out of Pennsylvania’s voting age population of 10,330,461.
In 2020, there were 9,090,962 registered voters in Pennsylvanians, 76% of which went on to vote in the 2020 general election.
“I would love for people to vote for Kamala Harris, but I’m more concerned that— I think people need to be voting,” said Fechl. "I think that that has been a huge thing, particularly with younger people just not feeling like it matters.”
In the 18-24 year age demographic, there are 818,524 registered voters in Pennsylvania. Looking at Census data, that is roughly 70% of all 18-24 year old in the state (compared to roughly 90% of 25-34 year old).
“We've seen in recent elections it's coming down to like a couple of thousand votes in particular states and precincts so it does matter,” said Fechl.
There are some technical challenges that age range can face. There can be confusion around voting rights for out of state college students. This weekend, voting rights groups criticized Lancaster county election officials for not processing voter registration from students at a local university.
Voter registration was a big push for the Elon Musk campaign events that swept through the state this weekend. I spoke with a young voter at the event in Harrisburg about if she sees enthusiasm to vote in her age group.
"In my friend group, yes. There's definitely like willingness and like enthusiasm to vote,” said Arianna Lawson, who plans to vote for Trump. “I have actually talked to some people that say like they're like, I don't know, I don't agree with either side, so I'm just not going to vote. So. I have heard that.”
The Harvard Youth Poll published in September did show that Vice President Harris has a 31% lead over Donald Trump among young, likely voters.
“I think what she's talking about doing with the first time home buyers credit is going to be huge,” said Fechl. "We have so many friends who would love to buy a piece of real estate downtown, and they're just being priced out by developers.”
“I think he stands for more of what I value. Is he perfect? No, but no person is going to be. That’s not what I’m looking for,” said Lawson. “This is one of those things where I say 'you know what? For the next four years, this is the better option', in my opinion. And and then after that, we're going to have a lot more elections moving forward. And we're all going to have to keep doing our research and keep saying informed.”
Here is the link to register to vote online or check if you are registered: vote.pa.gov
A Party Note
There are more Democrats registered in Pennsylvania (3,971,607) than there are Republicans (3,673,783). From October 14 to October 21, Democrats got 12,772 registrations and Republicans got 27,673 registrations.