State youth vote boosted by peer persuasion, rallies, bounce houses - can gains continue?

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.

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.

In 2013, Colorado lawmakers passed a comprehensive voting reform bill which put a mail-in ballot in every voter's mailbox and allowed for same-day voter registration. Many credit the bill for boosting youth voting 13 percent in the past year, putting Colorado second behind Minnesota for highest youth voting turnout.

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.

A suite of new voting apps are bringing new technologies to old organizing methods, like asking (or shaming) friends to vote and finding community leaders to encourage voter turnout. These old methods, now called "relational organizing," are coming back into fashion in an age of impersonal elections, when strangers often reach out to strangers to ask them to vote and campaigns spend millions on Facebook and television ads.

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.

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.

The domestic worker advocacy group, Care in Action, fell short in their goal to elect Stacey Abrams in 2018, which motivated them to mobilize an effective GOTV campaign in 2020. Over 250 of their members canvassed local neighborhoods each day, knocking on over 1 million doors. Overall, the group contacted 5.85 million voters by phone, mail, or in person. The group prioritized making connections with people historically overlooked in the political process and the member organizers make meaningful connections as canvassers because they share similar challenges and concerns as the people whose homes they visit.