{"id":24986,"date":"2016-01-27T12:02:58","date_gmt":"2016-01-27T18:02:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/?p=24986"},"modified":"2016-01-27T17:03:55","modified_gmt":"2016-01-27T23:03:55","slug":"local-activists-trying-to-energize-millennial-voters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/local-activists-trying-to-energize-millennial-voters\/","title":{"rendered":"Local activists trying to energize millennial voters"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Kierra Gray<\/p>\n

Robert Moses thinks\u00a0millennials\u00a0can\u00a0have a big say in the\u00a0outcome of the upcoming presidential election. The 23-year-old University of Illinois at Chicago student is an organizer\u00a0for the non-profit Chicago Votes.\u00a0Its goal is to\u00a0register new voters and makes complex political issues easy for young people to understand.<\/p>\n

“I feel like they\u2019re [millennials] engaged by doing community work like activism,” said Moses.\u00a0“I know a lot of millennials that are a part of different organizations that care about voting. They care about the South Side Trauma Center, they care about mental health, CPS equity. Millennials are definitely hitting the organizing, especially in Chicago.”<\/p>\n

But getting them to the ballot box\u00a0has proven challenging. In 2012, about\u00a0220 million\u00a0Americans were eligible to vote but only\u00a0150 million are registered to vote, according to the Statistic Brain Research Institute<\/a>. Among 18 to 24-year-olds,\u00a058.5 percent\u00a0were registered to vote.<\/p>\n

[vimeo 153153453 w=474]<\/p>\n

Derek Bagley, Chicago Votes Development Director, said the goal of this organization is to make democracy more accessible, fun, and simple so people can understand that their vote matters.<\/p>\n

“We have to meet people where they are with the interest that they have and speak the language of youth,” said Bagley. “Our generation thinks vastly different from the generation of our parents. We have the whole of human knowledge at our fingertips because of the use of the Internet. We are a more aware group of people though we\u2019re not engaging in that civic process despite that fact that we have all this knowledge all around us.”<\/p>\n

The millennial generation will be close in numbers to\u00a0the baby boomer generation at the voting box in the 2016 presidential election, according to the National Journal<\/a><\/em>. It will likely surpass them in 2020. Organizations in Chicago, such as Chicago Votes and the League of Women Voters, are searching for ways to engage\u00a0this influential generation.<\/p>\n

Mary Schaafsma, League of Women Voters Executive Director, has a message for millennials.<\/p>\n

“The legacy that we as adults are handing you as millennials and young people is a mess,” said Schaafsma. “Democracy is hard. This isn\u2019t like sitting in a bean bag chair and saying let\u2019s watch democracy on our big screen TVs. This is about being engaged, understanding the issues and then going and voting and considering ways in which you all run for office. We need to create more competition.”<\/p>\n

Chicago Votes says it will work to get people on college campuses and in the streets registered to vote. Bagley\u00a0said just being registered doesn’t mean you’re engaged. After voting registration ends, the organization will work on another effort called “Get Out the Vote” (GOTV).<\/p>\n

“We go out just as we had with the registration and collect what we call pledge-to-vote cards,” said Bagley. “Pledge-to-vote cards are issue based cards that people mark off things that they care about and reasons that they want to go out and vote.”<\/p>\n

Bagley says he\u00a0will\u00a0also work on a social media campaign to engage younger voters. He wants to make sure they have the facts about\u00a0who is running in the upcoming election, how they are running and what the candidates stand for.<\/p>\n

\n

Picture at top: Robert Moses at discusses race and gender issues at Chicago Votes, a non-partisan voting rights center<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Kierra Gray Robert Moses thinks\u00a0millennials\u00a0can\u00a0have a big say in the\u00a0outcome of the upcoming presidential election. The 23-year-old University of Illinois at Chicago student is an organizer\u00a0for the non-profit Chicago Votes.\u00a0Its goal is to\u00a0register new voters and makes complex political issues easy for young people to understand. “I feel like they\u2019re [millennials] engaged by doing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":155,"featured_media":25948,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[585],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24986","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-winter-2016"],"yoast_head":"\nLocal activists trying to energize millennial voters - Medill Reports Chicago<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/news.medill.northwestern.edu\/chicago\/local-activists-trying-to-energize-millennial-voters\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Local activists trying to energize millennial voters - Medill Reports Chicago\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"By Kierra Gray Robert Moses thinks\u00a0millennials\u00a0can\u00a0have a big say in the\u00a0outcome of the upcoming presidential election. 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