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An Incredible 72% Of Young People Voted In The General Election

An Incredible 72% Of Young People Voted In The General Election

You smashed it.

Mel Ramsay

Mel Ramsay

Well, what can we say. Young people absolutely smashed this General Election and defied the odds to ensure that their voices were heard.

We've had tuition fees increased, we've had EMA (Education Maintenance Allowance) taken away, we're the most likely to be on zero-hour contracts with insecure employment... and all of this is because parties feel like they can take the mickey because we don't turn up at the ballot box.

But yesterday, we finally said that we'd had enough. We turned around and fought back, ensuring that young people's voices will now be listened to, and catered for, in future.

It's believed that an incredible 72% of young people voted yesterday, reports Metro.

That might not sound that impressive, but in the General Elections in 2001, 2005, 2010 and 2015, only around 40% of us exercised our democratic right.

In the EU referendum, 64% of us turned up.

Toby Nicholls, from Altrincham and Sale West, told LADbible: "It's my first time voting but only due to age; the apathy of people my age irritated me, but now we've got on with it and voted and you can see what we're doing."

Ash Shaw said: "It's my first time voting, I'm 21 and youth influence has had a massive influence on this election. We've had man like JME and Akala spreading the word of Corbyn. This has no doubt made the youth want to vote. It's the first time someone has spoken for the youth and wanted to bring policies in that helps us.

"I didn't expect the result so far, I expected the old codgers to ruin our future when it means nothing to them."


Megan Bourne explained that she felt some things weren't explained well enough to student voters: "I'd say that whilst the number of young people voting seems to have drastically increased this year, more could have been done to raise awareness about how they can't just vote at any polling station.

"A lot of my friends at uni didn't realise their votes would only be valid at their home address if they hadn't changed it to their uni one, meaning they couldn't vote and vital votes were lost."

However, Anthony Stonelake told us: "I'm 16, and I'm sat here feeling helpless that I can't influence the way that our country is run. I understand that there is an unholy amount of people under the age of 18 that have no education of politics or how it works, but what about those who do? We have no say in what happens to our future. Thankfully my constituency voted the way I wanted, which I am thankful for but I am worried."

We'll find out the official numbers for how many people voted in each age group within a week or so, but these early figures are incredibly encouraging.

Featured Image Credit: PA Images

Topics: general election