Abstract

This article analyzes why many alienated youth choose to stay home on election day while others respond by voting for a third-party candidate. Probit analysis of the 1992 and 1996 American National Election Study data suggests that alienated young people were less likely to vote in both these elections. Among voters, such alienated younger cohorts were more likely to vote for Ross Perot in the 1992 presidential election, but apparently Perot’s appeal to alienated youth faded by the 1996 presidential race. These findings confirm that many young individuals do not vote, but that the existence of the Perot candidacy in 1992 led certain alienated youth to use their vote as a form of protest, by casting a ballot for an unlikely winner in that presidential race.