Youth vote in the United States
The youth vote in the United States is a political term used to describe 18- to 24-year-olds and their voting habits. Many policy areas specifically affect the youth of the United States, such as education issues and the juvenile justice system. The general trend in voter turnout for American elections has been decreasing for all age groups, but "young people's participation has taken the biggest nosedive". This low youth turnout is part of the generational trend of voting activity. Young people have the lowest turnout, though as the individual ages, turnout increases to a peak at the age of 50 and then falls again. 
Ever since 18-year-olds were given the right to vote in 1972, youth have been under represented at the polls. In 1976, one of the first elections in which 18-year-olds were able to vote, 18-24 year-olds made up 18 percent of all eligible voters in America, but only 13 percent actually voted - an under-representation of one-third. In the next election in 1978, youth were under-represented by 50 percent. "Seven out of ten young people…did not vote in the 1996 presidential election… 20 percent below the general turnout". In 1998, out of the 13 percent of eligible youth voters in America, only five percent voted. During the competitive presidential race of 2000, 36 percent of youth turned out to vote and in 2004, the "banner year in the history of youth voting," 47 percent of the American youth voted. Recently, in the 2008 U.S. Presidential election, the number of youth voters tripled and even quadrupled in some states compared to the 2004 elections.
Voter registration in the United States
It has been argued that some registration requirements deter some people (especially disadvantaged people) from registering and therefore exercising their right to vote, resulting in a lower voter turnout. According to a 2012 study, 24% of the voting-eligible population in the United States are not registered to vote, equaling some 51 million U.S. citizens. While voters traditionally had to register at government offices by a certain period of time before an election, in the mid-1990s, the federal government made efforts to facilitate registering, in an attempt to increase turnout. The National Voter Registration Act of 1993 (the "Motor Voter" law) now requires state governments to "either" provide uniform opt-in registration services through drivers' license registration centers, disability centers, schools, libraries, and mail-in registration, "or" to allow Election Day voter registration, where voters can register at polling places immediately prior to voting. In 2016, Oregon became the first state to make voter registration fully automatic (opt-out) when issuing driver licenses and ID cards, since followed by four more states. Political parties and other organizations sometimes hold "voter registration drives", that is, events to register new voters.