In 2017 the Oxford Dictionaries chose “youthquake” as their word of the year. The term they said saw a 401% increase due in part, they said, to young voters mobilizing in that year’s general elections in the UK and New Zealand.

Here in 2018  most of the US  young voter registrations are up significantly. NBC News reported recently: […] young voters between the ages of 18 and 29 years old make up an increasing share of those registering to vote in a handful of key states.

Pennsylvania has seen the sharpest increase — 61 percent of new voter registrations come from young voters, compared to 45 percent before the [Parkland, Fla. school] shooting.

Target Smart, a Democratic data firm, found a two percent nationwide uptick in registrations by youth (18 to 29 years old) — who skew more liberal on many issues. Since the Parkland shooting, gun control measures have been a particular motivator, they find.

Vermont and its upside-down doppelganger New Hampshire are clearly reacting differently to the potential “Youthquake” voting.

In Vermont, since 2016 you can automatically register eligible voters who apply for a driver’s license or state ID. The state has seen 18-to-29 year-old voter registration up 6 percent in 2018. As Vermont Secretary of State and more recently as president of the National Association of Secretaries of State, Jim Condos is almost constantly in the news working to increase voter access and to guard election processes from cyber-attacks.

Meanwhile New Hampshire — home of the first-in-the-nation Presidential Primary © ™ — the reaction differs.  Governor Sununu (R, of course) last month signed legislation to take effect in July 2019 that will limit election participation by many college-age voters originally from out of state. From Slate.com: [the law] effectively imposed a poll tax on college students, compelling many of them to pay hundreds of dollars in fees to establish residence in the state before they’re permitted to vote in New Hampshire. Once it takes effect, the law is almost certain to chill the franchise of younger Democratic-leaning voters — to an extent that could swing the state’s famously close elections

Note that in the 2016 New Hampshire election, 19 percent of the general election voters were under 30 years old. And these more liberal young voters proved significant to Hillary Clinton’s popular vote total and electing former Governor Maggie Hassan as their Democratic U.S. Senator in 2016.

It says “live free or die” on New Hampshire license plates, but if they want the franchise, young voters  might be freer if they “see Vermont.”