Does Voter Preregistration Increase Youth Participation?

Abstract

Abstract

Young people are systematically underrepresented in the electoral process. Reformers have attempted to design policies and campaign strategies that reduce this inequality, but most of these efforts have proven ineffective. One relatively new and increasingly popular reform allows young people to preregister at the age of 16 or 17, making them automatically registered on their 18th birthday. I estimate the effect of preregistration by combining individual-level administrative data with a differences-in-differences design that accounts for cohort effects as well as idiosyncratic differences across each state election. On average, preregistration appears to increase youth turnout by about two percentage points—a modest effect notably below previous estimates in the literature.