POLLS at this election have become so confused that on any given day it has been possible to read predictions of a Tory landslide, a narrow win, or even a hung Parliament, writes CHRIS HUMPHREYS.

The single most important factor that is throwing off the numbers is the role that young voters will play as the country makes its decision today.

Include them as likely voters and the poll is branded as irrelevant. Leave them out and you risk branding the young people themselves as irrelevant.

But the scepticism is justified - in 2015 just 43 per cent of eligible 18 to 24 year olds voted.

That’s a jaw dropping 32 per cent lower than in 1992 when turnout among the same age group was 75 per cent.

At each election we wonder whether the youth will defy the odds and turn out in their droves, but each time the pollsters are proved right and they stay at home.

In this, the era of blogs and vlogs and social media superstars, we have a generation of young people more able and willing to voice their opinions than ever before. But they’re choosing to exercise that ability almost anywhere other than at the ballot box.

Swindon Advertiser: Kaylie Moroney and Alex O'Connor with fellow Swindon College students. Picture by Thomas Kelsey

  • Kaylie Moroney and Alex O'Connor with fellow Swindon College students. Picture and video by Thomas Kelsey

For those of us who follow the country’s political goings-on every day, it may be difficult to understand the mindset of a young person who doesn’t go through their teenage years longing to have a say in determining our political direction. It is more difficult still to understand the young person who finally gets that opportunity, but doesn’t take it.

But understand it we must and so in a bid to do just that I spoke to two Swindon College students - both voting for the first time this year - about the forces discouraging young people from getting involved.

Twenty-year-old Kaylie Moroney told me that many people she meets find it difficult enough to organise and structure their everyday lives, without adding the idea of engaging with the political process into the equation.

She also said that perhaps if the policies were set out in more simplified language it would help make the debates more accessible.

Alex O’Connor, 18, and passionate about politics, explained to me that there is a stigma around being politically aware as a teenager - that it isn’t cool.

He thinks that has a big impact on young people’s willingness to participate.

He also believes that the absence of a formal introduction to politics at school is a factor.

But those we elect today will shape the future of Brexit, universities, jobs, houses, benefits, hospitals and more.

These are issues that matter not just to people like me, but to young people like you too.

They say decisions are made by those who show up.

Prove the pollsters wrong today and make sure you do exactly that.