The race for the white house is slowly approaching, with a little under six weeks until the 2024 presidential election. This year, about 41 million members of Gen Z will be eligible to vote, a number with tremendous weight. While many Gen Z and college students may be apprehensive to vote for valid reasons, using your voice by voting for higher office is a powerful way to demonstrate civic responsibility. Here’s a friendly guide on how you can help make the Gen Z Vote Count this election season.
Getting Registered
To be able to vote and tell others to do the same, you have to be registered! You can easily check your voter registration or register to vote on Vote.org. After entering your basic information, the website will be able to tell you if you are registered to vote and WHERE you are registered.
Here is a list of voter registration deadline dates for each state. Scroll to see which one applies to you!
As a college student, you are eligible to be registered in your college town OR your home town, but not both. Pick one you would like to represent and stick with it. From there, you can go to your hometown polling location to vote, vote in your college town, OR send in an absentee ballot to represent your hometown whilst staying at college.
For an extended step-by-step guide on how to vote while in college, check out this article I wrote during the 2022 Midterm Season that is still relevant during this year’s election.
A User-Friendly Guide on How to Vote While in College
Policies and Promises
Doing personalized research on the Presidential candidates allows you to educate yourself and others during this election cycle. Look through the presidential campaign websites of our candidates, Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, respectively. Explore which issues matter most to you and how each candidate plans on addressing them. As you explore policy after policy, you will hopefully get a sense of which candidate aligns with your viewpoints. You can further your research by visiting news sites that report on the candidates, their previous experience in office, and current events they are involved in.
Pro Tip: It can be hard to find news sources without bias or partisan alignment. Here is a list of credible, unbiased new sources that can help with your research.
Community Mobilization
Once you are equipped with knowledge and education about this upcoming election, it’s time to start mobilizing. The best way to make this election widespread and accessible is by spreading the word. Here are some ways to spread the word around your town or college community:
- Market Voting to your community! Putting up flyers, writing articles, posting on social media, or participating in your college or town’s voting-related efforts brings voting to the forefront of people’s minds.
- Talk to people about voting. This can start with your closest friends and family members and expand to people in classes and beyond. Explain the importance of voting and what is at stake in this election while remaining bi-partisan. The goal is not to get people to agree with your views but to help them understand the importance of people using their voices.
- Be aware of the key issues on the ballot this year. These issues are often what get people motivated to vote because they could be personal to a specific person. Some key issues of this election include the state of our economy, abortion rights, immigration policies, and international relations.
- Be willing to help! Now that you have educated yourself, people may ask you voting-related questions. Be ready to walk people through the process, answer any questions, or point people in the direction of resources that may be helpful.
Great Power, Great Responsibility
Playing a role in selecting the next President of the United States can be an empowering action that makes you feel part of something bigger than yourself. There is so much beauty in the democratic process and being able to continue the notion our country strives to achieve. Consider voting this election season and seek to mobilize your Gen-Z peers to do the same!