My Research Results

Voting Attitudes of Young Adults

by

Wesley St. Clair

I. Introduction

In my study, I was interested in the voting attitudes of young adults. Historically, there have been a list of reasons, or excuses, young voters cite that keep them from the polls ranging from laziness to absentee ballot complications to just sheer ignorance about politics. Beginning with the 2004 election and gaining momentum as the 2008 election approached, there have been more and more strong partisan and non-partisan movements dedicated specifically to bringing the 18- to 29-year-old demographic out to the polls.

According to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), 49 percent of 18- to 24-year-olds voted in the 2004 Presidential election. It was the largest voter turnout among young voters since 1972, with an all time high of 55%. The 2008 election increased the turnout from 2004 by an estimated 1 to 6 percent.

Several mathematicians have said voting is irrational -- especially in presidential elections -- because of the exponentially low chance of actually casting a deciding vote. So what is causing young Americans to change their minds about voting? I felt the topic was personally relevant as well because the 2008 election was my first time voting, and I wondered why I decided to vote this time and not previously in 2004. I wanted to explore the attitudes and opinions of members of my generation to determine what influences attitudes on voting and what could ultimately influence a young person to vote.

Turning inward, I felt the differences between my attitude in 2004 and my attitude currently towards voting had to do with my level of knowledge of various issues, candidates and policies. Therefore I wanted to study young adults’ habits when it came to watching the news’ affect on attitudes

II. Literature Review

The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement (CIRCLE), an organization that conducts research on the civic and political engagement of Americans between the ages of 15 and 25 (Lopez, 2008), teamed up with Rock the Vote, a research-based organization that provided grassroots organizations and campaigns with resources and best practices for mobilizing young voters, as described on their website, to study the recent voting habits and interpret them in the context of the modern voting trends. Together, they came up with a paper designed to be a resource for policymakers, journalists, nonprofits, and political campaigns looking to better understand the political attitudes and behaviors of today’s 18- to 29-year-olds (Lopez, 2008). I used it in my study as a source of ideas for possible independent variables, various statistics to help design my survey, and as a foundational springboard from which to launch my own study.

The study by Chareka and Sears was interesting to me because it uncovered an interesting aspect of youth voting attitudes: “For most youth, the choice not to vote was not about apathy but perceived effectiveness.” (Chareka, 2006: 9) This was another topic of study for me, in that I wanted to determine the relationship between faith in the voting process and individuals who vote. The Chareka study focused on measuring these cynical attitudes of young adults, and it is based on this work that I attempted to seek the causes for this voting-apathy.

The study entitled “Wha’d’ya Know?” was important to my study because it focused on young adults’ information-seeking habits and how it might point to ways which could promote more informed and engaged young voters (Wells). This was one of my main-focus independent variables and it was a good resource to have to understand the prior research in the area I was interested in. It was more of a qualitative research, which I found useful and interesting because it breaks ground in the area of factors that promote or hinder young adult voting involvement. It is upon this study that I built my own.

The study by Hooghe intended to determine if there was any predictive relationship between adolescents’ political attitude and their political attitudes and/or behaviors as young adults. Ultimately, they found little stability between intention to vote as adolescents and actual voting behavior as young adults. This article mostly served to pique my interest in the topic and gather ideas.

From these studies and my own experiences I formulated these hypotheses:

· Hypothesis 1: Those who consistently follow the news are more likely to have faith in the voting process.

· Hypothesis 2: Those who were ever a member of a political organization are more likely to have faith in the voting process.

· Hypothesis 3: Those with parents with higher incomes are more likely to have faith in the voting process.

· Hypothesis 4: Those who reported that their parents influenced their opinion on politics are more likely to have faith in the voting process.

· Hypothesis 5: Those who are older are more likely to have faith in the voting process.

· Hypothesis 6: Those who voted in the 2008 election are more likely to have faith in the voting process.

III. Data and Methods

My sample was a convenient, non-random sample that was collected by creating a Facebook event and inviting potential respondents that fit the criteria for the study, as well as passing out surveys to various students at the Student Computing Center. A total of 81 surveys were distributed, 63 were valid. My survey instrument was a seventeen item questionnaire covering my independent and dependent variables.

My dependent variable consisted of an index constructed from several questions that all measured what I believed to be indicators of either a presence or lack of faith in the voting process. This included belief that voting is an obligation, voting is important, and that it’s important to stay current with political current events, among others.

My independent variables were obtained from the articles and studies in my literature review or my own observations and experiences as possible influencers of faith in voting. I believed that membership in either a political organization or an organization that simulated government, such as student council or some other representative body, were more likely to be familiar with the political process and thus, vote. In a similar vein, I have observed that people who are knowledgeable of the current political climate and issues seem to care more about the democratic process and I hypothesized this increased their faith in it. In my personal experience, I have observed that my parents did not really introduce politics as a particularly important topic to me and, until recently, have been mostly indifferent to the voting process. In conversing with my peers whose parents have made a point to discuss politics with them, they seem to be more politically active, hence my measurement of whether the respondent agreed that their parents helped shape their political opinion or attitude. My other variables, which were mostly for control variables, I chose age, parents estimated income (categorical), and participation in the 2008 Presidential election. For my study I used a multiple linear regression to analyze my data.

IV. Results

My dependent variable, taken from the index of similarly themed questions, ranged from a score of 5, “low faith”, to a score of twenty-five, “high faith”. Membership in a political organization, news watching and participation in the 2008 election were all dichotomous questions. However, originally news watching was a categorical variable which I divided into zero, little, moderate and high levels of news watching, but since the biggest variation was in those who watched news six or more times per week and everyone else, therefore I recoded it into a dummy variable. Parents’ influence and parents’ income were both categorical variables, with the influence variable on a Likert scale of “strongly disagree” to “strongly agree” with the statement: “My parents have influenced my opinion on politics” and income grouped in ranges.

Descriptive Statistics

	Mean	Std. Deviation	N
“High faith in voting”	20.9048	2.96601	63
R was member of a political org.	.40	.493	63
R views news every day	.3016	.46263	63
R’s parents’ income	3.17	1.185	63
Parental influence on R	3.16	1.110	63
Participation in 2008 election	.86	.353	63
Age of respondent	22.75	2.300	63

The mean score of “high faith in voting” was moderately high, with 20.9 out of twenty-five and the average age was 22.75, indicating the majority of my respondents being recent recipients of Bachelor’s degrees. A majority of respondents were not in some sort of political organization and a minority of respondents reported watching or viewing some form of news media at least six times per week. The mean for parental influence and income were both in the third category, “neither agree/disagree” to having been influenced by their parents and having an estimated income of $70,000 to $99,999.

Linear Regression

	B	Std. Error	t	Sig.
(Constant)	14.485	3.428	4.225	.000
R was member of a political org.	-.776	.704	-1.103	.275
R views news every day	2.848**	.740	3.848	.000
R’s parents’ income	.118	.287	.412	.682
Parental influence on R	.294	.300	.979	.332
Participation in 2008 election	2.229*	.948	2.352	.022
Age of respondent	.117	.144	.811	.421

*p<0.05>2: 0.246

As indicated in the linear regression table, only two of my variables, consistent news viewing and participation in the 2008 election, were statistically significant. Controlling for all other independent variables, viewing the news at least 6 times per week as opposed to less than 6 times per week increases the faith in the voting process score by 2.848. In addition, when holding the effects of all other independent variables constant, having voted in the 2008 Presidential election as opposed to not increases the faith in the voting process score by 2.229 points.

My interpretations of these results:

a) That the relationship between consistent news watching and faith in the voting process is significant. I can reject the null hypothesis.

b) That the relationship between having voted in the 2008 Presidential election and having faith in the voting process is significant. I can reject the null hypothesis.

c) The rest of the relationships were not statistically significant, therefore I fail to reject the null hypotheses for age, political organization membership, parents’ income, and parents’ influence on opinion.

V. Conclusions

While it may not seem that much of a revelation to find out that people who vote in elections feel that the process is valid, I believe it can be seen as a way of confirming what we might hope is true: that people who vote do so because they believe what they are doing is right, important and necessary, and not because its just meaningless ritual or keeping the status quo.

Also, I was pleased to find out that one of my most anticipated independent variables, news watching, turned out to be significant. Young adults obtain up to 52% of their political information from some form of media (Wells, 2006: 1282) and therefore staying in touch with news media is a big part of acquiring political knowledge for youths, thereby educating themselves and improving their opinion of voting.

As for my other variables, they are apparently not fine tuned enough or were simply not significantly correlated to my dependent variable.

Limitations of my research included my sampling technique: ideally a larger, simple random, non-convenient sample would yield more generalizable and significant relationships. Also, considering the homogeneity of my sample, the majority of which being Caucasian, middle-class, morally and/or politically conservative college students, my findings are not very generalizable to all young adults.

In my study, I did not measure faith in voting in non-registered citizens, my main focus was on eligible voters. In order to obtain a more full picture of the relationships, I might consider increasing my focus on this population. Finally, if I were to continue with further research, next time I would improve my sampling techniques, reword certain questions on my survey, eliminate extraneous questions and increase the number of index questions for my dependent variable in order to try and find the exact variables that might influence young adults’ faith in the democratic process.

VI. Works Cited

Lopez, Mark H., Karlo B. Marcelo, Chris Kennedy, and Kathleen Barr. February 2008. “Young Voter Registration and Turnout Trends.” The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement. (http://www.civicyouth.org/PopUps/CIRCLE_RtV_Young_Voter_Trends.pdf)

Chareka, Ottilia, and Alan Sears. 2006. “Civic Duty: Young People's Conceptions of Voting as a Means of Political Participation.” Canadian Journal of Education 29 no2:521-40.

Wells, Scott D., and Elizabeth A. Dudash. May 2007. “Wha’d’ya Know? Examining Young Voters’ Political Information and Efficacy in the 2004 Election.” American Behavioral Scientist. 50 no9:1280-89.

Hooghe, Marc, and Britt Wilkenfeld. February 2008. “The Stability of Political Attitudes and Behaviors Across Adolescence and Early Adulthood: A Comparison of Survey Data on Adolescents and Young Adults in Eight Countries.” Journal of Youth and Adolescence. 37 no2:155-67

VII. Appendix

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