It Takes a Friend to Get a Friend to Vote

A group called Operation Libero in Switzerland has successfully rallied against rising right-wing populist groups by using different approaches like small-scale crowdfunding, eye-catching tongue-in-cheek campaigns, and viral social media videos. During one campaign, young Operation Libero volunteers handed out branded condoms to nightclubbers.

Universities are using competitions, music, and prizes to encourage civic engagement among students. Efforts are aided by a national study that allows schools to see how many of their students voted either locally or absentee.

A group called NextGen Wisconsin is using bounce houses, armies of field organizers, convenient voter registration tables, door knocking, and digital advertising to turn out historically high numbers of youth voters across the state. Other tactics included events with carnivals, petting zoos, therapy dogs, and giant connect four games. The idea is to turn voting into a fun and exciting event, with rallies around youth issues like gun control.

In an attempt to encourage voter turnout, Ariana Grande set up tables at concerts on her tour where fans could register to vote, or receive text alerts reminders for those who already had. The "ThankUNextGen" campaign, which plays on one of her song titles, has helped motivate younger voters.

To reach young voters more effectively, a company called Social Currant matched voter advocacy organizations such as NextGen America and Community Change Action with social media creators. The creators' posts about voting and civic engagement reached roughly 13 million people on TikTok and Instagram.

Amid a climate of targeted election misinformation, grassroots organizations such as One Arizona are intensifying their outreach to Latino voters, with a focus on connecting with younger generations through high school visits and outreach at music and cultural festivals. One Arizona has registered about 120,000 young voters in the state since March.

The University of Pennsylvania created a Civil Dialogue Seminar to teach students how to communicate across political divides. The seminar, which is part of a growing civil dialogue movement taking place among Gen Z, includes social psychology curriculum to help students navigate difficult conversations with people they disagree with. Students participate in the Red and Blue Exchange, small group conversations about controversial topics, where they practice having conversations about issues that elicit strong responses. Students also investigate their own emotional responses with weekly journal reflections.

Philly Youth Vote is a nonpartisan effort, organized by a local social studies teacher, to prepare 18-year-olds to vote. In addition to registering about 700 students in the summer of 2020, the group advocates changing social studies curriculum to include more lessons on civic participation. To connect students with on local issues that directly impact them, they brought 27 candidates to speak in 11 virtual classrooms. The students interviewed the candidates and other schools have used the recordings of the interviews as well. 74% of registered 18-year-olds in Philadelphia cast a ballot in 2020.

College students in Monterey Bay are pairing up with K-12 classrooms to teach students about civic engagement. The college students are then invited to give presentations during class time on topics ranging from the census to environmental justice. The program is a partnership between California State University - Monterey Bay and the Monterey County Office of Education, and also helps students fulfill a required community service credits.

MyVote organized over 300 student volunteers, mostly in high school, to research candidates and their policies so that voters could have a “one-stop-shop” platform to learn about policy platforms of candidates running in national and local elections. The group covered the policies of all candidates from North Carolina, Florida, and Pennsylvania and voters used the guides at the polls to educate themselves on the candidates and issues. Since many of the volunteers are not old enough to vote, carrying out the voter education research helped them get involved in ways that are useful to the democratic process.