The voter registration numbers are in and it looks like college kids stepped up.
The Maricopa County Elections Office reported more than 11,000 people between the ages of 18 and 22 signed up as new voters since the beginning of 2016. County Recorder Helen Purcell said many new voters registered so they could vote in the upcoming Presidential preference election.
“A lot of the people that registered in the last three days are people who had never registered at all before, so they’re brand new voters,” she said.
Of those 11,000 new college-aged voters, 43 percent registered Independent followed by 34 percent Democratic, 22 percent Republican and 1 percent other.
College-aged people made up a good portion of Maricopa County’s new voter registration this year. More than 20,000 people registered in the past three days, most of whom came through Service Arizona, an online registration service. The 20,000 were both people registering to vote for the first time and people changing their political party.
Since Monday, 4,000 people in Maricopa County changed their political party, most changing from Independent to Democrat.
