Every young person should register to vote, full stop.
This year’s National Voter Registration Week, which was September 18th-24th, 2023, I successfully registered thirty young people on the Emerson College campus to vote either in Massachusetts or their home state. Many of these people were confused on whether or not they should vote in their home state or college residence, as they weren’t sure where their vote mattered more in terms of their chosen political party—or if it even mattered at all.
For the longest time, I wasn’t registered to vote. This is ironic, considering I work for a nonprofit that focuses on registering young people to vote all throughout the year, election day or not. Since the 2020 election, I’ve been more and more civically active, encouraging other young people to protest, fight for what they believe in, stand up for the rights of others and more. But why didn’t I register to vote myself? I didn’t know. I didn’t know what to look up, where to go, who to ask. As a resident of Maine, I couldn’t register online, and I wasn’t sure how to get the forms I needed. It was daunting, confusing, and complicated.
According to CIRCLE, young people didn’t register to vote during the 2022 election cycle because of a lack of knowledge or educational attainment. During this election cycle, there was a 30-point gap in voter turnout between young people with a Bachelor’s degree and those with no college experience. This gap has proven to increase in recent years. Despite Gen Z having one of the highest voter turnouts in two decades, and being the first generation to make up the entire 18-24 cohort, 2022’s turnout was a drop from 2020 partly because of the education disparity and lack of awareness that there were even elections happening. Other reasons for this lack of education are disparities in income brackets, racial backgrounds and access to social media.
Voter education remains an issue amongst young people. I didn’t know about nearly any elections until I began working at the nonprofit. I felt as though local elections didn’t mean anything, so I would register to vote in 2024, just in time for the presidential election. As it turns out, local elections are the most important! Your vote counts more in local elections than anywhere else because decisions made in those elections are the most likely to impact your everyday life.
Some ways to become more educated about voting as a young person are to reach out to organizations in your local/national community (social media is a great way to gain outreach), research state statutes that promote youth civic engagement, create a teen/youth space dedicated to learning about voting, and to search for civic opportunities, such as youth poll worker programs, youth-led outreach teams and internships.
Voting as a young person, though you may not see it, directly impacts you and the future of your community. You may think: “One vote doesn’t matter!” It does. If everybody thinks their own vote doesn’t matter, then the integrity of democracy is questionable. How do we have a democracy if nobody votes?
I encourage you to get civically active in your community in any way you can and feel comfortable, whether that’s through cute Instagram infographics, hosting voter registration drives, or pulling up to Congress demanding change. Happy Voter Education Week!