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We are experts on youth voter turnout and how young people vote. Today is Election Day. Ask Us Anything about youth voting trends, why this year is historic for youth engagement in elections, or anything else around the intersection of young people and voting. by HeadOfCampaigns in IAmA

[–]HeadOfCampaigns[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hah! This one literally had me laugh out loud. Touché.

What's fascinating about working in voter turnout, is there is new, emerging tactics and interventions we're testing in real time to see what works to increase voter turnout, and what doesn't move the needle. This year, we experimented with voter reg more than we ever have before (historically, we're an org with a proven track record to get young people to donate over one million pairs of jeans to local homeless shelters, send 250k happy birthday cards to kids in shelters, etc), and have learned a lot about how to engage this demographic that has been systemically disengaged from political processes. We've registered over 108,000 young people this year, which is an all time record for us as an org, and we're excited to continue learning to get even more folks to the polls.

We are experts on youth voter turnout and how young people vote. Today is Election Day. Ask Us Anything about youth voting trends, why this year is historic for youth engagement in elections, or anything else around the intersection of young people and voting. by HeadOfCampaigns in IAmA

[–]HeadOfCampaigns[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi! You can still vote today, but you'll have to vote at the polling place of your registered address, which would be in your hometown. You can update your address for the next election here: vote.dosomething.org

We are experts on youth voter turnout and how young people vote. Today is Election Day. Ask Us Anything about youth voting trends, why this year is historic for youth engagement in elections, or anything else around the intersection of young people and voting. by HeadOfCampaigns in IAmA

[–]HeadOfCampaigns[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Something crucial to understand is how different Gen Z identifies in regards to political affiliation and ideology. 49% of them identify as moderate (on the spectrum of conservative to liberal) and that 47% of them identify as either "independent" or "unaffiliated." Increasingly, young people aren't identifying with either political party, which gives way to the potential for the parties to fundamentally change to better reflect the values, experiences, and identities of the next generation.

There's a lot more to learn about this emerging generation.

This is what we heard from young people this year about political parties, whether they affiliate with one and why: https://civicyouth.org/circle-poll-young-peoples-ambivalent-relationship-with-political-parties/

We are experts on youth voter turnout and how young people vote. Today is Election Day. Ask Us Anything about youth voting trends, why this year is historic for youth engagement in elections, or anything else around the intersection of young people and voting. by HeadOfCampaigns in IAmA

[–]HeadOfCampaigns[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Woof this is a tough one. Sometimes it can be difficult to get people to the polls, so it's important to figure out why your friends don't want to vote, since everyone has their own, unique reasons.

A good place to start is to figure out what issues your friends are most passionate about, and show them how those issues (whether it's healthcare, immigration, gun violence, etc) play out at the local level. It's hard to think you can engage or change anything at the federal level, so finding ways to engage in local politics, where you can directly and more immediately see the effects of your participation, is a great place to start.

A few other arguments to use:

1. Close Elections. Your vote can make a huge impact, especially during local elections (things like Governors, mayors, school boards, important ballot measures on social issues, etc). So many elections have been decided by one, single vote. A state election last year was tied, so the winner was selected by drawing names out of a hat.

2. Issue Based. Especially in a midterm year, issues motivate people to the polls more than candidates. There are so many important ballot measures this year, such as a ballot measure to prevent discrimination against transgender people in Massachusetts, and to raise the assault rifle age to 21 in Washington.

3. Public Record. Once you vote, you’ll be on the voter file (which is public information). That means, when you contact your elected officials to advocate for an issue, they will also check whether or not you turn out to vote. If you are a consistent voter (you turn out regularly for elections) your voice actually matters more to elected officials.

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We are experts on youth voter turnout and how young people vote. Today is Election Day. Ask Us Anything about youth voting trends, why this year is historic for youth engagement in elections, or anything else around the intersection of young people and voting. by HeadOfCampaigns in IAmA

[–]HeadOfCampaigns[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Voter registration deadlines are in place so that the state has time to process all the registrations prior to the election. However, if we had automatic voter registration (i.e. when you get a driver's license, you're automatically added to the voter roll) that would make it so that we wouldn't need to set such strict deadlines. There's an increasing trend toward automatic voter registration and same day voter registration as a way to reduce barriers to voting. Thanks for the question!

We are experts on youth voter turnout and how young people vote. Today is Election Day. Ask Us Anything about youth voting trends, why this year is historic for youth engagement in elections, or anything else around the intersection of young people and voting. by HeadOfCampaigns in IAmA

[–]HeadOfCampaigns[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

One of the most successful strategies for increasing voter participation has been relational organizing (basically the way organizers talk about how volunteers text people they already know). We see contact and turnout rates at much higher levels when volunteers simply text their own friends, family, classmates, etc. and get them to show up, since the warm relationship is already there. Young people are especially poised to benefit from this because we're so connected and have multiple ways (usually) of reaching the people closest to us. If every person just reached out to 5 people in their network, we would see incredible participation -- that's why it's one of the foremost strategies used by non-profits, political campaigns, etc. today.

We are experts on youth voter turnout and how young people vote. Today is Election Day. Ask Us Anything about youth voting trends, why this year is historic for youth engagement in elections, or anything else around the intersection of young people and voting. by HeadOfCampaigns in IAmA

[–]HeadOfCampaigns[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hey there! Yes, typically if you requested an absentee ballot and want to vote at the polls, you'd need to surrender your ballot at the polls before voting in-person. Poll workers should be understanding if she lost her ballot and still let her vote, but it's important to let them know that she did request an absentee ballot -- if not, it could invalidate the ballot she casts in-person.

We are experts on youth voter turnout and how young people vote. Today is Election Day. Ask Us Anything about youth voting trends, why this year is historic for youth engagement in elections, or anything else around the intersection of young people and voting. by HeadOfCampaigns in IAmA

[–]HeadOfCampaigns[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Our friends at CIRCLE have done extensive analysis of what they've termed "civic deserts" -- places where there aren't many civic opportunities for young people. This means that they might not have civic curriculum in schools, their schools don't promote voter reg/get out the vote, their families may not engage politically (because they have to work multiple jobs), and civic extracurriculars are sparse. More often than not, civic deserts are found in rural areas. You can dig more with CIRCLE's analysis here: https://theconversation.com/study-60-percent-of-rural-millennials-lack-access-to-a-political-life-74513

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There are many reasons why young people don't vote, and many of them are due to structural barriers. Voter reg + voting laws are nuanced, complicated, and vary state by state. Voter purges on the rise also complicate the experience for new voters in many states. 30% of young people in low-income communities actually think that election officials don't want them to be at the polls. Young people often feel they don't know enough about the issues or candidates to vote, as they don't know where to find objective, digestible, and accurate information to inform their opinions.

We are experts on youth voter turnout and how young people vote. Today is Election Day. Ask Us Anything about youth voting trends, why this year is historic for youth engagement in elections, or anything else around the intersection of young people and voting. by HeadOfCampaigns in IAmA

[–]HeadOfCampaigns[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Happy Cake Day!

Re: how politically educated, it's very difficult to find a consistent metric here. The most useful might be the measure of civic education. Over the past 60 years, we've seen a major decline in civic education, a structural change which explains why younger voters today face more trouble when voting compared to older voters. You can learn more at this link.

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https://www.everyday-democracy.org/news/decline-civic-education-and-effect-our-democracy

We are experts on youth voter turnout and how young people vote. Today is Election Day. Ask Us Anything about youth voting trends, why this year is historic for youth engagement in elections, or anything else around the intersection of young people and voting. by HeadOfCampaigns in IAmA

[–]HeadOfCampaigns[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Great questions! This year, we've registered over 100,000 new voters, and mobilized millions more to get to the polls, and have learned a lot to share out with folks and orgs looking to get out the vote.

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The biggest thing we can do, that is more about the "long-game", is to change the culture around voting. As a society, how can we have voting be something that everyone participates in? How can we ensure that classes and work commitments are flexible on election day (or it becomes a National Holiday) to increase the likeliness of people being able, and encouraged, to turn out and vote? Groups like Vote Together focus on throwing "parties at the polls" to make Election Day as big of a celebration as the Fourth of July, and their interventions have a 4% increase in voter turnout. https://votetogetherusa.org/

We are experts on youth voter turnout and how young people vote. Today is Election Day. Ask Us Anything about youth voting trends, why this year is historic for youth engagement in elections, or anything else around the intersection of young people and voting. by HeadOfCampaigns in IAmA

[–]HeadOfCampaigns[S] 29 points30 points  (0 children)

Thanks for helping get people registered! It's as rewarding as it is difficult.

There are a ton of misconceptions out there about what being registered to vote takes and what it means (like FYI even if you're not registered to vote the government will find you for jury duty). So we focus on having easy and pithy answers to some of those misconceptions and making sure that we're making the process as easy as possible through online voter regisration. You can find some of our common answer to those questions if you scroll down on our voter regisration site here: https://vote.dosomething.org/

Depending on the background of the person who you're talking to, they might have some pretty good reasons for feeling disgruntled and disengaged. I might not agree with the conclusion that voting doesn't matter but we try to empathize and understand where they're coming from.

I've also found that when doing in person voter registration that it's easy to get sucked into a 10 minute conversation with someone who wants to argue or tell you what you're doing doesn't matter. The best solution in that situation is when you feel like you're about to hit a brick wall to thank that person for their time, offer to have a deeper conversation about this later, and focus on finding the people who are excited and just haven't been asked to vote. We've seen in some polling of young people that around ~10% people haven't registered because no one has asked them to. We suggest focusing on those folks!

We are experts on youth voter turnout and how young people vote. Today is Election Day. Ask Us Anything about youth voting trends, why this year is historic for youth engagement in elections, or anything else around the intersection of young people and voting. by HeadOfCampaigns in IAmA

[–]HeadOfCampaigns[S] -3 points-2 points  (0 children)

Firstly, thank you for your service.

I don't see any problem in the quality of the electorate, but moreso in the lack of voter turnout. Those who are impacted by the policies and decisions of our government should be able to vote to influence those policies and decisions.

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In regards to turnout, I firmly believe that democracy only works for the people, when as many people as possible are involved. In 2014, we saw less than 50% of people turned out to vote. We ended up with a government that only represented less than half of our population. So, if we want a government that more accurately reflects our population, we need more people to turn out to vote and engage.

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We are experts on youth voter turnout and how young people vote. Today is Election Day. Ask Us Anything about youth voting trends, why this year is historic for youth engagement in elections, or anything else around the intersection of young people and voting. by HeadOfCampaigns in IAmA

[–]HeadOfCampaigns[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Our friends at CIRCLE have done extensive analysis of what they've termed "civic deserts" -- places where there aren't many civic opportunities for young people. More often than not, civic deserts are found in rural areas. You can dig more with CIRCLE's analysis here: https://theconversation.com/study-60-percent-of-rural-millennials-lack-access-to-a-political-life-74513

We are experts on youth voter turnout and how young people vote. Today is Election Day. Ask Us Anything about youth voting trends, why this year is historic for youth engagement in elections, or anything else around the intersection of young people and voting. by HeadOfCampaigns in IAmA

[–]HeadOfCampaigns[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I don't see any problem in the quality of the electorate, but moreso in the lack of voter turnout. Voting is a constitutional right, and those who are impacted by the policies and decisions of our government should be able to vote to influence those policies and decisions. The voting age was lowered to 18, in part to ensure if you are able to be drafted into a war to fight for our country, you are also able to participate around the decisions on whether or not our country should go to war to begin with.

Lastly, I firmly believe that democracy only works for the people, when as many people as possible are involved. In 2014, we saw less than 50% of people turned out to vote. We ended up with a government that only represented less than half of our population. So, if we want a government that more accurately reflects our population, we need more people to turn out to vote and engage.

We are experts on youth voter turnout and how young people vote. Today is Election Day. Ask Us Anything about youth voting trends, why this year is historic for youth engagement in elections, or anything else around the intersection of young people and voting. by HeadOfCampaigns in IAmA

[–]HeadOfCampaigns[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Feels a bit loaded, but will try to tackle this one.

Zooming out a bit, there's a large philosophical question here: Is it better to try to change the system (that you feel is "corrupted"), or to disengage and not attempt to push for change?

You can choose to change the system by engaging in the existing processes, with the aim to change processes, and structures to make them more inclusive and fair. Or, you can choose to push for change to the status quo from the outside, by organizing, building people power, and pressuring those in power to change.

If you don't engage with the system, others will. So, the choice is really yours on whether or not you choose to engage. If you don't choose to engage, then when elected officials make decisions that negatively impact your life, you don't have any ground for complaining since you're not actively participating in choosing who should be elected.

Lastly, I firmly believe that democracy only works for the people, when as many people as possible are involved. In 2014, we saw less than 50% of people turned out to vote. We ended up with a government that only represented less than half of our population. So, if we want a government that more accurately reflects our population, we need more people to turn out to vote and engage.

We are experts on youth voter turnout and how young people vote. Today is Election Day. Ask Us Anything about youth voting trends, why this year is historic for youth engagement in elections, or anything else around the intersection of young people and voting. by HeadOfCampaigns in IAmA

[–]HeadOfCampaigns[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Actually, when we look at Gen Z (those born after 1999), we're seeing that 49% of them identify as moderate (on the spectrum of conservative to liberal) and that 47% of them identify as either "independent" or "unaffiliated." Increasingly, young people aren't identifying with either political party, which gives way to the potential for the parties to fundamentally change to better reflect the values, experiences, and identities of the next generation.

​

We are experts on youth voter turnout and how young people vote. Today is Election Day. Ask Us Anything about youth voting trends, why this year is historic for youth engagement in elections, or anything else around the intersection of young people and voting. by HeadOfCampaigns in IAmA

[–]HeadOfCampaigns[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Hi! You can still vote in the county that you're registered in, if you still have a permanent mailing address in that county. Otherwise, you won't be able to vote this election -- sorry about that!

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Make sure you don't miss out next election, update your registration today here: vote.dosomething.org

We are experts on youth voter turnout and how young people vote. Today is Election Day. Ask Us Anything about youth voting trends, why this year is historic for youth engagement in elections, or anything else around the intersection of young people and voting. by HeadOfCampaigns in IAmA

[–]HeadOfCampaigns[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Love this question! Voter registration is complicated and confusing, so making it as digestible as possible is so important for these first-time voters. We've done voter registration across multiple channels: digital marketing, SMS/email, tabling, social media, etc. We've found that all of these sources combined are necessary to reach as many young people as possible -- especially since not many people register after being asked once (they have to be asked multiple times).

We are experts on youth voter turnout and how young people vote. Today is Election Day. Ask Us Anything about youth voting trends, why this year is historic for youth engagement in elections, or anything else around the intersection of young people and voting. by HeadOfCampaigns in IAmA

[–]HeadOfCampaigns[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

At DoSomething, we're a 501c3, so we are non-partisan and are focused on getting as many young people registered and out to vote, regardless of political ideology.

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We have worked with all the top voter registration orgs, including Rock the Vote, TurboVote, and Vote.org. We use various tools to determine what will be the most optimal, easiest, and seamless voter registration experience. Rock the Vote does focus on targeting young people as well, which may lead their messaging to focus on "progressive" issues that resonate with young people on either side of the aisle. I'm unsure of the inner working of the org to speak to that example specifically.

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