Since the snap election in the UK has been concluded, the youth vote has become a big issue again.
Labour’s resurgence seems to be due in part to a massive turnout by young people.
Almost 250,000 young people registered to vote ahead of the deadline for Thursday’s election, up from 137,400 on the last day of registrations in 2015.
According to Sky News data, the turnout for 18- to 24-year-olds was 66.4 per cent, up from 43 per cent two years ago.
Sky gave similar estimates to Lord Ashcroft of how young people voted, showing that 63 per cent of 18- to 34-year-olds voted Labour and 27 per cent Conservative.
My question then is, how can we get a similar surge among young voters in the US?
By “youth”, I’m referring to 18-35. I fall within this group, but I vote very regularly. How though, can we get other people within this group to become regular voters?
I’ve been bouncing ideas in my head on how to get more young people registered and get them out to vote for all elections, not just the presidential ones.
I split my ideas between Registering voters and Early voting/Election Day voting
Registering voters
1. Partner with internet/social media companies to promote registering to vote. Google, Yahoo, Instagram, Snapchat, Amazon, Netflix, Twitter etc. all have geo locations on us (yes, they know where we live). Voter Registration organizations should partner with these companies to target users with voter registration alerts. On their front pages of search engines or right after you log into your app, have a alert show up asking if you’ve registered to vote. If not, the user could be directed to an online voter registration form or to the proper DMV facility to register.
2. Partner with universities and colleges to push voter registration. A really big mobilization drive could be to ask students during admissions/orientation if they are registered to vote.
Another idea is to get universities/colleges to offer students credits for helping people get registered. Like a “community service” credit. OR award a credit just for registering to vote.
Third idea is to place volunteers outside of dorms to get students registered.
3. Push automatic voter registration in states
4. Have a “Register to vote day” in high school. Pick a day near the end of the year to register the senior class (the ones who are 18). Many schools have a government or civics oriented class.
5. Similar to “register to vote Day” for high school, get cities or towns to push a “register to vote week”.
6. Partner with Lyft, Uber or any driving app to get people to a local DMV at a discounted rate.
GOTV
1. Again, utilize Google, Yahoo, Instagram, Snapchat, Amazon, Netflix, Twitter etc. to push GOTV. If a state has early election sites these websites can give information on where to go and the days and times they are open. On election day, websites can use their geo location to pinpoint where your voting site is located.
2. At universities/colleges post notices of where the nearest polling locations are.
3. Similar to a “souls to the polls”, create days to get people to vote early and we can call it, “Youth to the voting booth”. Or, if you vote early, you get half off at restaurants for a few days.
4. Partner with Lyft, Uber and cab companies to get people to the polls. This should could be a free or discounted pass. Anyone who has the app can use a coupon code for voting to get a roundtrip ride to a voting location.
What other ideas do people have? Post an idea and I’ll add it to the list. My goal is to put together a large list and email it out to the major voter registration and GOTV organizations to maybe give some ideas. They’ve probably thought of all of these, but hey, maybe 1 idea is completely new to them.
We need to create a culture of voting. We can’t just show up for Presidential races and then nothing else. Our democracy is too important to ignore.