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Summary

CIRCLE (the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, Tufts University) is the US academic research center focused on youth civic engagement, voter turnout, and political participation among under-30 cohorts. It publishes the Youth Electoral Significance Index (YESI), the Growing Voters framework, and Political Homes research.

Body

CIRCLE’s Youth Electoral Significance Index (YESI) is a state-by-state composite measure that ranks the political weight of young voters, combining population share, registration rates, and historical turnout. The index is widely cited in campaign planning and in foundation grantmaking for youth-engagement programs. [source: circle-tufts]

The Growing Voters framework re-theorises youth engagement as a development arc — pre-registration, registration, first vote, habit formation — rather than a one-cycle mobilization event. The arc is the empirical answer to the persistence question that has plagued single-cycle registration drives: turnout regresses after the election unless the cycle itself builds durable habit. [source: circle-tufts]

Political Homes research asks where young voters form durable partisan or movement attachments; the answers shape youth-program design (which institution retains the youth between elections, which messengers are credible, which issues anchor long-term loyalty). [source: circle-tufts]

The center publishes regular pre- and post-election youth-turnout analyses (e.g., the 2022 midterm youth-vote report), maintains the youth-data tables used by practitioners, and runs the research arm of many foundation and state-party youth programs. [source: circle-tufts]

Use it for

Designing a youth-vote program grounded in the registration-to-turnout arc; citing state-level YESI scores to argue a state’s strategic importance in a youth-engagement plan; reading post-election youth-turnout analyses to calibrate methods between cycles.

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