How to Get Young People to Vote in Elections

Video Transcript

"Hello, my name is Arielle Reid in Budapest, Hungary. And today, I will discuss how to get young people to vote. Now, generally, electors under 30 are the most under-represented demographic. But getting young people to vote isn't any more difficult than getting, let's say, a 65 or 75 year old person to vote. The trick is being able to understand your target audience. So discuss issues that matter to young people. Now, most young people under the age of 30 are not worried about retirement and they're not really worried about job security. They're interested in keeping tuition low, they're interested in things like environmental protection. They're interested in foreign policy. So it's important to discuss the issues that are important to them and to highlight how voting...how, in voting, they can impact these decisions. It's also important to do outreach focus towards young people. Go to school campuses, hold events, go to rallies -- all the places where young people congregate offer great opportunities for people to incite young voters to go out and exercise their democratic right. Early voter registration -- if you start a voter registration drive that is non-partisan and you're not pushing your own political ideas on young people, they're more likely to get interested and get involved in the political process. Having people constantly tell you what to do is not really an incentive to go vote, but being encouraged to take part in the larger democratic process through something like voter registration will generally raise the level of awareness and get rid of a little bit of apathy. There are also events like Rock the Vote, which are really, really instrumental in not only educating young people about the issues being voted on in elections, but also providing them a platform to speak about issues that are important to them. In any given election, you can find youth organizations that are holding rallies, conferences, press conferences, events geared toward young people to get them involved in the political process. If you want to help young people vote and vote more often, then it's probably easiest if you were to help discuss some of the issues that are important to young people, participate in outreach programs, participate also in non-partisan voter registration, and participate in events like Rock the Vote."