“Young people, where are you?” - Can young people determine the outcome of the 2022 election?

As parliamentary elections are approaching, young people have emerged to the spotlight again. On the one hand, political forces are trying to reach out to them; on the other hand, they are trying to estimate the weight of their votes. To get a realistic picture of what to expect, we need to be aware of the numbers. Firstly, we have to know how many young people there are and how many votes we can expect from them in 2022. With view to the traditional age bracket, the number of young people aged 18–29 with the right to vote is close to 1.3 million according to the 2016 Microcensus of the Hungarian Central Statistical Office. Of these, first-time voters, who were 12–15 years old in 2016 when the Microcensus was conducted and will be 18–21 years old in 2022, represent just over 390,000 people.
The turnout at the previous parliamentary election in 2018 was roughly 70 percent, representing nearly 5.8 million votes out of 8.3 million potential voters. Based on this, the number of young people is not negligible; however, the participation rate reduces the number of possible votes in any case. Experience shows that the participation of young people is lower than that of older age groups. This means that if the average participation rate is around 70 percent, it is lower for young people, i. e. more than 900,000 votes can hardly be expected. Out of these, only a third of the votes may come from first-time voters, even if the first ballot has a positive effect on participation.
Overall, roughly 15-16 percent of votes counts. It would be enough for three individual parties to cross the parliamentary threshold. However, it is difficult to imagine that these votes will all point in the same direction and will thus clearly define the outcome of the election. To the best of our knowledge, in the 2022 parliamentary elections the united opposition will challenge the ruling parties, simplifying the question above into a dichotomous formula: could there be a majority of votes in the youth group towards the government or the opposition which determines the outcome of the whole election? Without detailing the issue of the list and the individual votes, and assuming a balanced proportion of supporters of the ruling party and the opposition among the older members of society, more than 6 percent of young people's votes and at least 20 percent of first-time voters’ votes would be needed to modify the final result by 1 percent.
According to a large-scale youth survey of 8,000 respondents conducted at the end of 2020, Hungarian youth are not interested in politics. On a scale of one to five the average is 2.4 for 15-29-year-olds, and there is an average of 2.1 for first-time voters. The majority of young people in Hungary feel that democracy is important and slightly more people are satisfied with the state of democracy in Hungary (48 vs. 46 percent.) The difference is more pronounced among first-time voters (49 vs. 42 percent.)
On the liberal-conservative scale of self-classification, a liberal preponderance can be perceived, while on the left-right scale we find balanced relations.
As regards the specific willingness to vote, low values can be observed; 24 percent of young people and only 14 percent of first-time voters say that they would definitely vote in a parliamentary election next Sunday. For youth as a whole, the party preference for an election to take place is 33 vs. 30 percent in a government vs. opposition relation (without The Hungarian Two-Tailed Dog Party and the Our Homeland Movement, 33 vs. 25 percent.) Forty-five percent of those who say they would definitely cast their ballot would vote for the ruling parties and 34 percent for the opposition. 28 percent of first-time voters would opt for the government and 22 for the opposition, while among those intending to vote this proportion is 43 vs. 39 percent. All this means that while the advantage of the governing parties is significant among young people, this headway in terms of votes is insufficient for young people to decide the outcome of the 2022 election.