On more than 100 campuses
around the country, New Voters
Project organizers are working to
train thousands of students to help
turn out hundreds of thousands of
young, first-time voters to polls on
Election Day.
The effort underway represents the
largest effort undertaken by the Student
PIRGs’ New Voters Project
Boosting Participation
“The more people that vote, the
better,” said New Voters Project’s
Sujatha Jahagirdar. “Until recently,
young voters had some of the
worst turnout of any demographic.
And since we know that voting is
a habit most learn young, we need
to turn that around if we want a
strong democracy.”
The New Voters Project peer
recruitment model has been perfected
over the last several elections.
It relies on training student
volunteers to recruit their friends
to register and commit to voting.
A University of Michigan study
found that those who received a
reminder in a text message one
day before an election were 4.2
percent more likely to vote. That’s
why leading up to Election Day,
New Voters Project organizers
and volunteers will help send
hundreds of thousands of text
messages, to remind their peers to
hit the polls.
Youth Vote Surges
When the Student PIRGs’ New Voters
Project began in late 2003, our
goal was to invigorate democracy
with the voices of young people—
who have been traditionally infrequent
voters—and to get prominent
politicians to address the concerns
facing the next generation.
Until recently, the numbers of
college-age Americans who registered
and voted were declining
with each new election. In 2004,
however, young voters bucked
Engaging Young Voters:
650,000 Voters Registered
the trend, catching many political
observers by surprise.
In 2006, the trend continued, even
in a mid-term election. According
to Youth Voter Strategies, “Turnout
in the 2006 election more
than doubled in the 36 precincts
where groups like the New Voters
Project actively turned out this
age cohort.”
In that election, New Voters Project
organizers turned out more than
75,000 students to vote and ran
operations on 80 campuses.
Over the years, the New Voters
Project has helped to register an
estimated 650,000 18- to 24-year old voters, bringing new energy
to the political process.
That work has helped broaden the
debate to include issues like making
higher education more affordable,
addressing global warming,
as well as providing better access
to health care.
