Bragging Rights: New York vs New Jersey?
In the race for highest youth voter registration rates, it’s not even close.
I love a little healthy competition, and why not, when it can push everyone to do better? So place your bets, ladies and gentlemen: Between New York and New Jersey, which state do you think has the higher registration rate for 18-year-olds?
Drumroll.
Suspense music.
Here’s the great reveal:
That’s right, New York, you will have to do better, a lot better, if you want to catch up and overtake your friends across the Hudson.
That’s a dramatic difference for states that are just a river apart and that have similar demographics regarding race, immigration, and education attainment. If every 18-year-old were registered in these states, we’d have ~56,000 additional NJ voters and ~130,000 additional NY voters.
Both states were considered similarly uncompetitive in the 2024 presidential election, and both have competitive races for US Congress in 2026 impacting roughly one quarter of their population of each state (3 out of 12 congressional seats in NJ, and 6 out of 26 in NY).
So, what gives?
Maybe NJ parents love their teens more than parents in NY. Maybe young people in NJ are just plain better than those in NY.
Or, if those explanations sound implausible, maybe it’s about systems, the salience of upcoming elections, and other types of investment or lack of investment to actually engage young voters.
New Jersey, for example, has many fewer young people turning 18 each year than New York (120,000 in NJ vs 237,000 in NY), but much greater numbers of licensed 18-year-old drivers. Specifically, 67% of NJ 18-year-olds have driver’s licenses, versus only 29% of NY 18-year-olds. So Motor Voter may be working a whole lot better in NJ than NY.
New Jersey also requires that high schools offer instruction about voter registration and provides an annual statement of assurance that they have followed through. New York state law requires school boards to have policies mandating instruction about voter registration, but it has no monitoring and compliance built into the law.
NJ is encouraging local measures to allow 16-year-olds to vote in school board elections, whereas NY has not done the same. New Jersey also has statewide elections in November 2025, with a primary in June. New York City has a mayoral primary in 2025, but no major state-wide elections.
Regardless of these policy distinctions, one thing is clear: neither state is doing particularly well. They both have a long way to go to consider their youngest voters reasonably and equally enfranchised. (Look to Michigan for inspiration: they show other states how to get closer to parity with older voters.)
Registration rates for 18-year-olds in both states lag far behind the rates for older voters ages 45 and above.
In New Jersey, the registration rate for those 45 and above is 80%, reflecting a 26 percentage point gap compared to 18-year-olds. In New York, the registration rate for those 45 and above is 72%, reflecting a 25 point gap compared to 18-year-olds.
Overall, that’s ~32,000 missing 18-year-olds in NJ and ~63,000 in NY compared to the rate for those 45 and above.
Both states also have enormous disparities in rates between counties at the high and low ends of the spectrum, representing vast inequities in political power between those with high and low rates. The pre-18 registration rates for both states are roughly the same: 22% of 16- & 17-year-olds preregistered in NY, and 21% of 17-year-olds in NJ. (NY allows for pre-registration beginning at age 16, New Jersey at age 17.)
What we know is that breathing life into election laws is also critical. We encourage every high school in America to host a student-led voter registration drive twice per year, every year. We have toolkits, training opportunities, shareable graphics, and many other resources on our website to help.
Our spring Cap, Gown & Ballot campaign is in full swing, and if everyone reading this note would ask teens and educators across NY and NJ (and across the country) to host registration drives in their schools, then the race would really be on.