The 2020 election will massively shape the conditions of the world in which young people grow up, but those who are under 18 are in a unique position: Their future rests on the outcome of the election, yet they can't vote themselves.
"We have to save November to save our planet," Alexandria Villaseñor, a 15-year-old climate justice activist and the founder of Earth Uprising, says. "Climate change is the number one voting issue to young people, and it's because it's going to impact every aspect of our lives."
Chanté Davis, a 16-year-old involved with the youth-led climate justice organization, the Sunrise Movement, in Houston, Texas feels similarly about the election. "The election is probably one of the most important we're going to encounter in our lives," Davis says, in reference to young people. "While you can't vote, your future is still being affected. Despair and climate anxiety are rampant. Things need to change now."
Allie Aguilera DiMuzio, director of civic partnerships and campaigns at Rock the Vote, notes that while you often hear talk of an election being the most important of all time, "This year, it's true. It's the most important election of [young people's] lifetimes."
"Even if young people are too young to vote, they have the opportunity to shape the direction of the country moving forward," Aguilera DiMuzio says. "I think there's a question here about who gets to decide what the future of our country looks like. It's clear young people can't wait on the sidelines."
We talked to youth activists who can't vote in the 2020 election — Villaseñor and Davis, as well as 16-year-old Makayla Jordan, a gun control advocate involved with Students Demand Action, and 14-year-old Haven Coleman, a climate organizer and activist — about what other people who are too young to vote can do to get involved with the election. Here's what they had to say.
1. Register people to vote
One of the most crucial things you can do for the election, even if you can't vote yourself, is simple: Make sure that other people do.
For starters, Villaseñor and Davis suggest using social media to inform and mobilize voters. The easiest way is by simply sharing information about voter registration, which you've probably seen plenty of people do already.
Davis also recommends carefully researching the specifics about the election in your area, including information about polling places or candidates' platforms, and sharing relevant information on social media. (You'll want to take extreme caution in getting voter information from official sources, and making sure it as up to date as possible.)
In addition, you can also get involved with voter registration efforts, either in-person or through phone and text banking, happening in your local community, as well as ones organized by voting mobilization groups, like When We All Vote and Rock the Vote. (Of course, this is an especially unique election year, and there are pandemic-specific precautions that you should consider with in-person efforts. You can learn about safe get out the vote options here.)
When speaking to anyone about voting, Aguilera DiMuzio recommends relational organizing, which is built on the idea that we're more likely to take action if goaded by friends. She points to Rock the Vote's app, Empower, which lets you text friends preloaded calls to action and other resources.
Relational organizing can be done without established tools or organizations, too, Jordan points out. She's 16 despite being a senior in high school. That means some of her classmates will be eligible to vote even though she isn't. If you have friends (and family members) who are eligible to vote, of course you want to first check that they're registered (and help them access information about registering if they're not.) Once you've done that, though, Jordan also recommends initiating conversations about why you care about the election and voting.
"I would be so happy if I could vote [because] my vote matters; your vote matters," Jordan says. "Every single vote matters."
2. Help fight for a free and fair election
In recent elections, the average age of poll workers has skewed old. But this time around, many older Americans, logically fearing for their safety in light of the coronavirus pandemic, will need to sit out this year. That means polling places may be short-staffed.
But poll workers are essential for ensuring the timeliness and ease of voting, and for keeping polling places open. To that end, there are efforts underway to recruit young people to volunteer as poll workers and ensure that polling places are adequately staffed, such as the nonpartisan initiative Power the Polls.
Similarly, Davis and Aguilera DiMuzio encourage young people who are too young to vote to look into volunteering as a poll worker. Eligibility requirements vary based on where you live: Though some states require poll workers to be 18, plenty don't. You can look into the specific poll worker eligibility requirements for your state here. To find more info on how to apply to be a poll worker, head to the U.S. Election Assistance Commission or National Association of Secretaries of State websites. (You'll want to do this as early as possible. The Cut wrote about what being a poll worker entails here.)
Outside of volunteering as a poll worker, there are other things youth under 18 can do to "make sure voting is happening successfully," Aguilera DiMuzio points out. That's especially important this year: It's possible (if not likely) that both unintentional and intentional voter suppression will occur during the 2020 election.
"Think about how you can contribute to a full and fair election," she says. To this end, Aguilera DiMuzio suggests supporting the efforts of groups doing election protection work.
Election protection services inform voters about the voting process, helping them navigate barriers to voting that might arise, including moved polling places or intimidation from polling officials or others.
She suggests volunteering with an election protection hotline, which people call if they run into a barrier while voting, like not receiving required assistance or learning a polling place was closed without notice. She maintains youth under 18 are often allowed to volunteer. (You can do election protection work locally, or through organizations or campaigns, and Election Protection (866 Our Vote) is a good central resource to find those opportunities, Aguilera DiMuzio notes.)
3. Share your own story
Jordan, Davis, Villaseñor, and Coleman, like many youth activists, are mobilized around issues that matter to them specifically because they are young: Jordan detailed to Mashable her desire to go to school free from fear of gun violence, while climate activists Davis, Villaseñor, and Coleman maintained that their generation's future is entirely dependent on bold, aggressive action on climate change.
To that end, even though you can't vote, as a young person impacted by politics, there's a lot of power in your own story, Villaseñor and Davis maintain. That’s something you can share on social media, to call attention to the issues and candidates you care most about on the ballot.
Coleman echoed the sentiment in an email to Mashable: "Our voices are the only way we can influence the election, and a lot of times, especially now during the pandemic, that means using social media to influence others to vote how we want the future to look."
With this in mind, Coleman recommends conveying the gravity of the climate crisis, as a voting issue, to family members who are older than you: "Talk to people you know and ask them to vote for our future, or to 'give you' their vote. Tell them how the climate crisis is here already, that it will affect them in their lifetime, if it hasn’t already. This is something that’s not getting across to people, that climate change is here and it’s affecting us now. Youth need to get that message out to their families."
Davis, who has often utilized social media storytelling while working with the Sunrise Movement, knows the tactic well. In August, Davis created a video for the organization chronicling her experiences with climate change-fueled natural disasters. In it, she explains how her family moved to Texas after Hurricane Katrina, only to later experience Hurricane Harvey and, most recently, Hurricane Laura.
You don’t need to make a video like Davis; these tactics also work as you make any kind of post online. She recommends first building the "story of self," explaining how your own life has been touched by chronic, economic or environmental disaster (or whatever other cause you’re trying to bring attention to).
From there, she recommends expanding to the “story of us." In short, try to bind people together to find common ground on the issue or candidate. Once you've built this sense of community, Davis says you should then include a call to action, whether that's voting, voting a certain way on an issue, encouraging others to volunteer as poll workers, or something else, so that they can identify a clear way to turn your message into action.
4. Manage social media criticism
As a young person — and particularly a young person who can't vote yet — it's possible that you'll encounter pushback from older people online who either underestimate your knowledge, or question your dedication to the outcome of an election you can't even vote in. "I know a lot of adults think you're young, you don't know anything about what's going on, but that's super untrue," Jordan points out.
Though condescending language from adults could occur anywhere, it's important to have plans for addressing it online, where it's especially likely to occur.
Villaseñor recently experienced some of this herself. Just as the massive wildfires ravaging the West Coast were ramping up, she tweeted about what she saw as a lack of media coverage of the fires. That came from the heart: Villaseñor had just returned to New York from California when she sent that tweet, and she was worried about family members who were still in California.
Many people, including reporters, interpreted Villaseñor's tweet literally, since she claimed no major outlets were reporting on the fires. They went out of their way to correct Villaseñor, and point out what they felt was extensive fire coverage.
But that wasn't her point. She was concerned with a much larger, longstanding lack of climate coverage in the media and how, in her opinion, the coverage was downplayed on news homepages. Saying that no major outlets were covering the fires didn't necessarily mean no outlets were covering them at all — in Villaseñor's eyes, they simply weren't being treated as the top story of the day when they should've been.
Though the experience was a bit rattling, it was nothing new for Villaseñor, who has to regularly deal with climate-deniers and trolls online.
For young people dealing with negative comments online in response to election-related posts, she recommends first confirming the account isn't a bot. (You can find tips for identifying bots here.) If it's coming from a real person, there might be situations that warrant a reply, but by and large, Villaseñor recommends taking notes from the youth-led climate movement, which tries to ignore climate deniers, for instance. If people refuse to believe science and basic facts, there's no need to engage.
She recommends focusing on building support among other young people, instead of wasting time responding to adults who might be condescending: "You put yourself out there to rally other young people. There are so many people making an effort to push the needle."
Davis backs that mentality up. She's learned it's important to build "a really tight knit community [online, and] push off the negative comments." Rather than focusing on the naysayers, she wants young people to instead focus on the "wave of change" you're creating.
Topics Activism Social Good Elections Politics
