It was in Virginia , perhaps more than anywhere else in America, that the modern concept of democracy originated.

It was in Virginia , during the decades before the Revolution, that “the people” protested Parliament's taxes, and that elected representatives asserted that only they could levy taxes.

It was a Virginian , Peyton Randolph, speaker of the House of Burgesses, who was elected president of the first Continental Congress.

It was a Virginian , Patrick Henry, who inspired Americans to resist tyranny. “I know not what course others may take,” Henry said, “but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!” 1

It was Virginia that became the first colony to direct its delegates in the Continental Congress to move for independence .

It was a Virginian , George Mason, who drafted the Virginia Declaration of Rights, which served as a model for the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights; a Virginian, Thomas Jefferson, who drafted the Declaration of Independence; a Virginian, George Washington, whose leadership made that independence a reality; a Virginian, James Madison, who, as father of the Constitution, transformed that independence into a workable government.

It was in Virginia that subjects of a king became free and independent citizens.

The people we refer to as our founders were the original activists, models of civic engagement for the generations that followed. Given the crucial roles Virginians played in creating the American republic, it is entirely appropriate that we investigate the state of citizenship in Virginia today.

Working in partnership with the Civic Indicators Working Group and the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), the National Conference on Citizenship (NCoC) produces the Civic Health Index annually. In 2009, the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act directed NCoC to work in partnership with the Corporation for National and Community Service and the U.S. Census Bureau to expand this work and produce a Civic Health Assessment.

In 2010, the Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier and The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation joined forces with NCoC to report on the civic health of Virginia. This report is drawn primarily from the U.S. Census Bureau's Current Population Survey (CPS) with supporting research from a 2010 survey of awareness and understanding of the Constitution and constitutional concepts conducted by The Center for the Constitution at James Madison's Montpelier and The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation.

Part I of this report looks at voting trends in Virginia, where voter turnout generally has been better than in the United States as a whole — with some disturbing exceptions. Part II considers one of those exceptions, voter turnout among young Virginians, and why it may be lower than voter turnout among their elders. Part II also considers other measures of young people's civic engagement, such as volunteering, and compares their knowledge of the Constitution and constitutional concepts with that of their elders. This analysis, which is generally discouraging but has a few bright spots, leads us to conclude with a call for more and better civic education.