“In a 2020 when over half the people are submitting their ballots by mail, when people are talking about voting, they are going to be hearing from lots of different sources about voting by mail. We don’t know if that’s going to be the case in 2022,” said CIRCLE's Kelly Beadle.

Tufts University’s Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) reported a big boost in 2020 turnout among voters aged 18 to 29, with climate change hugely on their mind.

“Institutionalizing proactive measures, which are so important for young people, who are moving more frequently and who may need reminders to update their registration because of their mobility rates, are the types of things we’re starting to see are correlated with higher voter turnout,” said CIRCLE's Kelly Beadle.

“We are coming off of historic highs, and sustaining that is going to be a challenge,” says CIRCLE's Kelly Beadle. “There is no silver bullet.”

An analysis, released last week by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University, found that young Asian Americans had one of the largest increases in voter participation last year of any racial or ethnic group.

Youth voter participation increased across the country in the 2020 election, according to an analysis by Tufts University’s Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement. But South Carolina was below the national average, with 45 percent of eligible 18- to 29-year-olds casting a ballot.

Further increases may be in store for future elections, says CIRCLE Deputy Director Abby Kiesa. The 2020 increase was particularly outsized among 18- and 19-year-olds, suggesting they and the sub-18 voters who will come of age in 2022 and 2024 may bring a fresh surge in numbers centered on ever-younger voters.

In Massachusetts, the turnout among registered voters between 18 to 24 had shot up to 20.9 percent in the 2020 primary from 6.7 percent in 2018, and 2.1 percent in 2016, according to Tufts’ Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement.

Roughly 50%, according to the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University, a jump of 11 percentage points from 2016 and likely the highest youth voter turnout since the voting age was lowered to 18.

States that mailed ballots to every voter in the pandemic also saw not only higher overall turnout rates, but especially higher youth turnout rates.

Half of Americans ages 18 to 29 cast a ballot in the 2020 general election, an 11-percentage-point increase from 2016, when 39 percent did, according to a new analysis of youth voter turnout from the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University.

“The earlier that a young person is engaged in civic life in some way, the more likely that they are to engage in the long term,” said Abby Kiesa, deputy director of CIRCLE.