How Youth Turned the Tide in the 2020 Election

In Colombia, students in classrooms make decisions democratically. The result has been higher rates of student involvement and achievement.

B. Godihal is one of the thousands of communities in Karnataka that have worked to hold clean elections, stirred by a confluence of awareness campaigns by nongovernmental organizations and rising public frustration with candidates’ broken promises.

In Takoma Park, Maryland, the voting age for local elections is 16. Lowering the age has increased turnout among youth—and studies show that the sooner people start to vote, the more likely they are to be lifetime voters.

In the U.S. the electorate skews white, wealthy, and old because such demographics are more likely to vote. Creating mandatory voting laws would increase voter turnout and thus increase voting equity.

Crises and problems are well-covered in the media. When the media focuses instead on organizations that are doing social good, it has a better effect because then these organizations are more likely to receive support and expand their access.

Voters tend to know a lot about presidential and local candidates but little about those in between. In Sierra Leone, an organization hosted, filmed, and then projected the debates in villages, increasing voters’ knowledge of the candidates and issues, and changing the way people voted.

In Iowa, the “redistricting” of the state’s legislative and congressional boundaries is done by mapmakers who abide by nonpartisan metrics that all sides agree are fair — a seemingly revolutionary concept in the high-stakes decennial rite of redistricting.

The Center for Applied Nonviolent Action and Strategies provides a "blueprint" for peaceful and democratic revolution, busting myths about the process of nonviolent revolt and helping dissidents in countries around the world to accomplish political goals, such as fighting corruption or protecting the environment.

Low voter turnouts, populists offering half-truths, corporate interests, and the blurring of facts in the media are signs that democracy around the world is in turmoil. Internationally, citizens have assembled different programs and initiatives that arm ordinary people with information about policy and their elected officials, as well as distinctive ways to reform the electoral system.

A correlation exists in Cuyahoga County between the idle youth rate -- base on teens who are neither working nor in school -- and the youth violence rate, according to an analysis done for The Plain Dealer by Claudia Coulton, co-director of the Center on Urban Poverty and Community Development at Case Western Reserve University and a professor of urban social research.