The youth vote has greatly influenced the election through raising concerns on several issues, and their opinions have gained more exposure than past years due to the growing prevalence of social media.

The youth consists of adults ages 18-24 and compose 18 percent of the electorate. They have participated in elections since the ratification of the 26th Amendment, which lowered the voting age from 21 to 18.

With social media becoming more prevalent in the election, candidates increasingly try to reach out to millennials to gain their vote.

“I think [social media is] kind of valuable so everyone knows what’s going on,” Jack Dawson (10) said. “In this era, social media is people’s lives, so it’s checked daily and everyone knows what’s happening.”

Social media has also publicized groups like the Bernie Bros and the Alt-right who use sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Reddit to attack other candidates and attract attention, often starting online debates in comment sections.

“[Bernie’s] policies seem very radical to some, but in my opinion those are needed in this society, especially on education reform, and the environment and education reform,” Sumi Wadhwa (11) said. “He embraces them and that spoke to a lot of millennials and are living in this era, where the economy is kind of screwed up, and I kind of think that he kind of spoke to us and found a message in us that was really impressive.”

The term “Bernie Bros” describes a section of young white males supporting Bernie Sanders that make hostile and sexists remarks about Hillary Clinton online. Online news websites criticized Bernie Bros for greatly damaging Sanders’ campaign such as in a Washington Post article titled “The Bernie Bros are out in full force harassing female reporters.”

Sanders himself condemned Bernie Bros saying that they did not reflect his campaign’s ideals.

On the Republican side, the Alt-right, a segment of conservatives that do not follow typical and generally accepted conservative values have mainly supported Trump this election and have been similarly been accused of making offensive remarks online attacking Clinton. Though not exclusively comprised of youth voters, the group associates itself with ideology such as Islamophobia, nativism, antifeminism and white supremacy and have attracted many young white males. Alt-right users often use memes such as “Pepe the Frog” to express their beliefs, some of which have attracted media attention.

“Disregarding and attacking millions of supporters is not the way to win this election,” Jay Paranjpe said. “The Alt-right and Bernie Bros just trolling online may be making themselves feel better, but in the end [I think] they’re gonna be the reason their candidates lose.”

While Bernie Bros and the Alt-right are more extreme examples of the youth’s negativity towards the election, according to Child Trends, a nonprofit research organization, voting turnout of youth ages 18-24 declined from 44% to 38% in between 2008 and 2012 and is expected to continue trending downwards this election because many believe that their votes don’t make a noticeable difference in politics.

This piece was originally published in the pages of The Winged Post on November 16, 2016.