Young people are registering to vote in large numbers ahead of Election Day. According to Vote.org, the nonpartisan registration platform registered more than 1 million voters during the 2024 election cycle as of September, with voters under 35 making up 79%.

More than 8 million Americans ages 18 and 19 will be eligible to vote this year, and these young people will have tremendous power to influence the outcome of elections ― as long as they vote successfully.

Young voters are often first-time voters ― and there are a few voting processes that this group is commonly confused by, election experts said. Here are two of the biggest ones:

Young and new voters may fail to register in the state where their vote can decide an election.

Young and new voters may be the difference between who wins or loses on Election Day ― if they take advantage of the opportunity to vote in a presidential battleground state if they’re a new resident there.

Take Pennsylvania. The Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Pennsylvania reported that each year, 21,000 students move from their home state to a university in Pennsylvania. Those thousands of new students represent an enticing voting bloc. In 2020, Joe Biden won Pennsylvania over Donald Trump by just 81,660 votes.

So if you are a U.S. college student who is new to a state, know that your vote could be a game-changer. You are eligible to vote in the state where you go to college ― as long as you have been a resident for a set number of days.

“The basic question of ‘Oh well I go to school here, but I am from a different place? Can I vote here?’ The answer is almost always yes,” said Erik Daniels, NextGen America’s national states and organizing director, who is helping to register voters on college campuses in eight states. “That is definitely a question that comes up when we’re first registering people to vote.”

To be eligible to vote within a particular voting jurisdiction, you must live in your election district, typically for 30 days before an election, although residency rules vary by state.

In other words, even if you’re a freshman, you will likely have fulfilled your new state’s residency requirement by now. This is important if you happen to be living in a key swing state like Pennsylvania, Michigan or Nevada ― states that have rapidly approaching registration deadlines.

You just need to make sure that you have a physical address in the state that you’re registering to vote in, Daniels said. When registering young voters in North Carolina, for example, “We run into a lot of people that live in South Carolina. So we make sure that they are either living on campus in North Carolina or commuting from somewhere else in North Carolina,” Daniels said.

If you’re a first-time voter in a state that has registration at the polls on Election Day, you likely will need to provide proof of residency such as a utility bill or a bank statement that shows your name and address.

Daniels noted that it’s also a lot easier for young people to vote in person than vote absentee. Some colleges will even have polling locations on campus. Daniels said he was “pretty politically active in college, but the likelihood of me requesting my Missouri ballot to get mailed to me and then I’m going to mail it back as an 18-year-old ― that’s not happening.”

Keep in mind that choosing your student address or your hometown address as your voting residence can also affect how you vote. If you use your family’s home address as your voting residence, you may have to vote by mail or commute back to that county to vote in person.

They may also accidentally bring the wrong form of ID.

Once you go to the polls, you need to double-check what your state requires you to bring to vote. You may bring the wrong form of ID ― which could jeopardize your ballot.

Most states require voters to bring a form of identification to vote in person or provide an ID number when you vote by mail ― in 21 states, this will need to be a photo ID.

Some states allow you to use your student ID, but others will not. As Adrienne Quinn Martin, the chair of the Democratic Party in Hood County, Texas, put it to HuffPost, in her state, “You can use a handgun license as an ID, but you can’t use a student ID.”

Instead in Texas, you could bring a Texas driver’s license, passport or citizenship certificate, among other forms of authorized identification.

Daniels said photo ID requirements can be easier in states like Nevada, which permits many forms of ID, while it can be more confusing for voters in states with shifting laws like North Carolina.

“For the last 10 years, North Carolina’s been in this battle over photo IDs that are required to vote,” he said.

Before a 2018 law by the Republican-controlled Legislature, North Carolina voters did not need photo ID, but now they do. Just this September, the North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled that people cannot use a virtual college ID after that was originally said to have been a viable ID for voting. Daniels explained that you now need a student ID with a photo and an expiration date if you would like to use it to vote.

North Carolina voters who show up without an authorized ID can still fill out an exception form with their ballot if they have a “reasonable impediment” to showing photo ID.

When in doubt, look up what your state requires you to bring to the polls on Election Day.

Understanding what you do not need to bring with you to the polls can also put your mind at ease.

If you register to vote for the first time or update your registration, you will be mailed a voter registration card, which will show you where your voting precinct is and it will confirm that you are registered to vote.

Quinn said she receives many questions from people on whether they need this card to vote: “They’re like, ‘I can’t vote because I don’t know what I did with my voter registration [card].’” But the good news is that a voter registration card simply confirms that you are registered to vote. You do not need to bring it with you to be allowed to vote.

The best way to avoid surprises about your ballot is to give yourself as much time as possible.

“If you can vote early, I always stress doing that, not just because usually the lines are shorter, there are more options, it’s more flexible,” Daniels advised. “But also you have more time to rectify a situation if something goes wrong.”