In spring 2024, IGNITE launched the IGNITE the Vote campaign to educate Gen Z women on how elections happen, why they matter, what is on their ballot, and how to vote. Through this work we could get them into the habit of voting and grow their community knowledge.
This undertaking included organizing 150 Ambassadors to mobilize young voters, a digital campaign prioritizing peer-to-peer messaging, and ongoing research to better understand how our youngest voters feel about politics and their vote.
Looking Ahead: Continuing to Engage Young Voters
Our research and engagement efforts uncovered key insights about Gen Z that helped us develop strategies during the campaign and for their long-term voter activation:
- Accessibility is Crucial: Barriers like unclear voting processes, confusion around absentee ballots for college students, and locating polling places continue to deter many potential voters.
- Education Must Go Beyond Voter Registration: For first-time voters, confusion around signing ballots, voting by mail, and key identification requirements uncovered the depth of barriers to casting a ballot. Voting logistics must be integrated into all election activations.
- Efforts Must Address Gen Z's Disillusionment with Politics: Young voters feel they are walking on eggshells when “talking politics” and seek spaces to engage in political discourse without fear of “being put in boxes” as they explore issues and define their stance. They want a home in which to discover what resonates for them, without judgment. They seek a collaborative and transparent political landscape, with leaders who acknowledge what young women deem important and who speak to the issues that motivate them, even outside of an election cycle.
- Gen Zers Engage Most Through Issues They Care About: Young people do not automatically vote for candidates based on their party affiliation but are most often driven to vote based on the issues they care about. Gen Zers prioritize issues of gun violence, the economy, and the cost of living over party. For women, abortion access remained among their top five concerns.
- Targeted Messaging Matters: Through extensive message testing, our efforts showed that localized and issue-based content outperformed generic calls to action, highlighting the need for tailored, regional communication strategies.
- Don't Treat Gen Z As A Monolith: Organizations, candidates, and campaigns must prioritize understanding the nuances of Gen Z by engaging with them meaningfully and regularly.
Understanding the nuances of Gen Z’s feelings about voting and the particular barriers they face will help us curate the next chapter of IGNITE the Vote to better serve their needs. We invite you to reflect on these lessons too: did any surprise you? Which piqued your interest most and why? Consider having a conversation with the Gen Z folks in your life and using these lessons as a starting point to learn more about their perspectives.