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.
Youth vote in the United States
In nine out of ten elections, the candidate who spends the most money is elected. The average cost of a successful campaign for the United States House of Representatives is nearly half a million dollars. A large portion of this money comes from "large individual contributions" – an average of 74 percent of the campaign funds raised in the 2012 presidential election between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney were large individual contributions. An average of 25 percent of presidential campaign funds in 2012 were made in "small individual contributions." The Supreme Court rulings on Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission in 2010 and SpeechNow.org v. Federal Election Commission allowed corporations and individuals to donate directly to political action committees (PACs), Super PACs, or 501(c)(4)s which could then spend unlimited amounts of money on campaigns of their own. The general perception of this system is that in turn for such large donations, candidates will vote in accordance to their large donors to ensure future donations during their reelection bid and pay the smaller donors slight attention. When the media reports that on campaign finance scandals, it is portrayed as a solitary incident with no connection to later policy outcomes. Americans have become so accustomed to the power of money in politics they are not surprised when a scandal occurs. The future for the influence of large donors is unlikely to change because the lawmakers with the power to create and pass campaign finance reform are those who benefit most from the large donations when their term is up and they must run reelection campaigns.