New Data Alert: New Hampshire
Only 27% of 18-year-old are registered to vote ahead of election day
Today, just ahead of Election Day, we’re sharing data hot off the press from New Hampshire, a state with notoriously difficult registration rules. Low levels of registration for the youngest voters — the lowest of all the states we’re tracking — reflect the challenges. There is still a chance for Granite Staters to turn things around with same-day registration. So don’t be shy.
This is the nineteenth of our 2024 Election Season weekly series of Future Voter Scorecards. Our goal is to help everyone concerned with youth and democracy understand where things stand, what is going right, and what needs improvement on national, state, and local levels to welcome young people as full participants, starting with registering to vote in high school.
New Hampshire: By the numbers
Earlier this summer, we shared that, as of the end of June, only 21% of 18-year-olds in New Hampshire were registered to vote. In the three-and-a-half months since then, statewide rates have increased only 6 percentage points, to 27%.
That means that there are over 11,800 18-year-olds, many of whom are high school students, who are not yet registered but who can still vote in November.
On the county-level, the current registration rate for 18-year-olds maxes out at only 43% in highly-educated Grafton county, and is as low as 14% in rural Coos county.
These numbers are astonishingly low, as New Hampshire’s 18-year-old registration rate trails those of other states we’ve tracked in the last two months by a wide margin: Michigan, Virginia, and Pennsylvania’s statewide rates are all more than double that of New Hampshire.
Registration deadlines vary by town in New Hampshire, but all eligible residents will be able to register on election day. Here’s a handy flyer from our partners at Open Democracy New Hampshire on what to bring to make it easy. More detail is available here and here.
See below for detailed registration rates for New Hampshire’s counties and largest towns.
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