ICYMI: The Nation on NextGen America’s Fight to Protect the Youth Vote

NextGen America and other youth vote organizations work to engage and empower young voters despite unprecedented barriers to civic participation

On Wednsaday, The Nation published Inside the Fight to Protect the Youth Vote, covering the efforts of activists and organizers across the country to protect young voters’ access to the ballot. The piece discussed how youth organizers have been fighting to ensure that young and first time voters are able to make their voices heard in the upcoming midterm elections despite facing numerous logistical barriers to participation in our democracy, including a lack of polling locations on college campuses, inconsistencies with equal access to vote by mail, and more. Inside the Fight to Protect the Youth Vote featured insights from NextGen America Executive Director Arianna Jones and the President of NextGen’s registered student organization at Penn State University.

NextGen America Executive Director Arianna Jones spoke to the organization’s work to empower young voters:

“Groups like [NextGen America] are doing everything in their power to provide pathways [to voting],” Arianna Jones, the executive director of NextGen America, said. “The big thing for me is that young people take hold of their own futures and step into that power and recognize the fact that no one would be fighting this hard to take it away from them if it wasn’t worth it.”

NextGen America’s Pennsylvania State University student organization President Molly Metz shared her perspective as a college student organizing her peers:

“One of the biggest barriers to youth voting has been a lack of information, according to Metz. ‘If the process becomes any bit difficult, it becomes increasingly harder to motivate people who may be on the fence about voting,’ she said, pointing out that many students do not know how to start a mail-in ballot away from home or format their dorm addresses. ‘It’s an objectively confusing process, and it’s hard to blame them when the system is not really set up with college students in mind.’”

You can read the story in full here

This news comes as NextGen America continues to work to engage young voters around the issues that matter to them—affordability, climate justice and protecting our democracy—ahead of Election Day next week. NextGen has spent this cycle helping students organize their peers on sixteen college campuses in seven states, engaging first time voters and registering them to vote through voter education events, issue-education sessions, and more. Ahead of Election Day next Tuesday, NextGen’s student organizers will continue to get out the vote on college campuses to ensure that young people’s voices are heard, and that the largest and most diverse generation in American history is empowered to organize, vote, and lead.

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About NextGen America

NextGen America is a nationwide organization working to educate and empower young people to organize, vote, and lead.