Nearly two-thirds of Maryland’s roughly 78,000 18-year-old residents are registered to vote, according to data published Tuesday from the Center for Democracy and Civic Engagement at the University of Maryland, College Park, outpacing registration rates in battleground states and providing a potentially decisive group of new voters.
The rate of the youngest registered voters in Maryland exceeds that of neighboring Pennsylvania, according to the study, one of several states key to the success of either Vice President Kamala Harris or former President Donald Trump at the top of the national ticket. Maryland’s youth registration numbers also surpass those of Ohio, Georgia and Arizona, three additional battleground states where the youth vote could sway the outcomes.
It’s too soon to say how much influence Maryland’s youngest voters will wield, said Michael Hanmer, director of the College Park democracy and civic engagement center. But the race for Maryland’s open U.S. Senate seat, for example, is one that Hanmer said could come down to a tight margin — one where newly legal voters could matter.
“There are places where elections are close, and a swing of young people could eventually move things,” he said.
The study was co-authored with Laura W. Brill of the Civics Center, a Los Angeles-based nonprofit organization that works to pre-register students in high schools, and Sam Novey, the College Park center’s chief strategist.
Novey said Maryland has enacted several policy reforms since 2010 that have upped young voters’ registration rates, including allowing them to pre-register to vote starting at age 16 and offering people the option to register when they get driver’s licenses. Eighteen-year-old voters also can “same-day” register and cast ballots at Election Day polling sites and are given the option to register when interacting with a range of social services, including the Maryland Health Benefit Exchange, the state’s public health care portal.
The results of this concerted effort have been clear, Hanmer, also a government and politics professor, said: Higher percentages of 16- and 17-year-old voters were pre-registered in Maryland as of December 2023 than in New York and California, which have similar political demographics but fewer policies in place.
But the data, Hanmer said, also indicates that more work may be needed to service the other third of all Maryland 18-year-olds, and the majority of 16- and-17-year-olds, who are not registering to vote. The number of registrants varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction, with Baltimore City trailing all 23 counties and Worcester County leading the pack.
Closing the gaps could involve upgrading to a new automatic voter registration system, Hanmer and Novey said, or finding other ways to reach people who don’t drive. Race also factors into the variance, Hanmer added.
Tenne Thrower, project lead at Black Girls Vote and a community engagement administrator at the Baltimore City Public Schools, said not every student has the ability to make a plan to vote when faced with “constant life barriers.”
She works to make the voting process as easy, and fun, as possible, which sometimes involves school competitions, pizza parties and field trips to City Hall.
“When they see the celebratory piece, it actually engages them more and gets the school staff excited, too,” Thrower said. “You’re creating that climate and culture that this is something to be excited about.”
Framing voting as a precious responsibility rather than a chore also goes a long way at convincing young people to register, said James McLaughlin and Aleni Lila, youth interns with Baltimore Votes, a nonpartisan organization that aims to increase turnout in the city.
McLaughlin, who attends the Gilman School, and Lila, a student at Western High School, said their peers have largely jumped at the chance to pre-register and participate in Election Day.
“We need more power, in terms of everything,” Lila said. “If it affects us, we should have a say.”
Lila and McLaughlin will serve as city election judges on Nov. 5, which comes with a stipend. Both are pre-registered to vote for when they turn 18.
This story is published in partnership with as part of the Baltimore News Collaborative, a project exploring the challenges and successes experienced by young people in Baltimore. The collaborative is supported by the Annie E. Casey Foundation. News members of the collaborative retain full editorial control.
