a woman in front of voting signs in Austin Texas

With their future at a crossroads, young Americans are shattering voting records

More than 7 million young people have already voted in this year’s election, many driven by racial inequality, gun violence, and climate change.

Mariah Campbell sits outside a polling place in a Third Ward neighborhood in Houston, Texas on October 29. Campbell, a junior at Texas Southern University, mentors students on the importance of voting. “I think with the recent happenings with, of course, racial injustice and the pandemic, it's kind of driving people to be more passionate about the things that are happening in our world, as well as passionate about electing leaders that have the same ideas and values that they do," Campbell said.

Photos by Graham J. Dickie, National Geographic

The echo from the loudspeakers took over the purple lot at NRG stadium Thursday night in Houston, Texas as dozens of cars trickled into a drive-in concert across the street from one of eight 24-hour early voting sites.

Votersss who cast their ballots at the all-night voting locations in Harris County helped lead Texas to record breaking voter turnout four days before election day. With 9,669,246 votes cast by Friday, the last day of early voting in Texas, the state already has shattered its 2016 voting record.

By Friday, 86 million Americans had cast their ballots, according to the U. S. Election Project. The pace of voting across the country is on track to reach participation levels not seen since 1908. (

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