The Challenge
The overwhelming majority of the world’s democracies make registration mandatory or automatic. A small group, the U.S. included, make it optional and we’re even unique there—while others make considerable effort to reach out to unregistered voters, we do little to engage them. Over 60% of citizens (both registered and unregistered) say they have never been asked to register by anyone. Our national young-voter registration rate is about 58%, and most states’ pre-registration rates are under 20%. Extra-curricular, student-led registration drives help. But kids can’t possibly educate EVERY one of their peers on how to register and vote. That’s what students deserve—and what our democracy needs.
The Largest Generation Project
Preparing students for life includes preparing them to vote.
When students learn how to pre-register, rates can rise to as high as 96%.
Just 23% of eligible young voters turned out in the 2022 election. But here’s the good news: young, REGISTERED voters have shown up at a rate of over 75% in every presidential election since 2004! In 2020, registered youth voted at a whopping rate of 86%.
Young citizens, who have the most to gain or lose from decisions made now, aren’t apathetic—they’re just under-registered!
Our dream is that EVERY student leaves high school registered and ready. It’s what kids deserve, and what our democracy needs.
A Fresh Approach
OnaShifting the Student Registration Paradigm: from Opportunities and Drives to In-Class Civic Education
Imagine if every student left high school ready and registered to vote! This isn’t a dream, though: it’s already being done in parts of the country.
Our workshop, developed by veteran New York City public school teachers in coordination with election officials and democracy advocates, guides students through issues of motivation and misinformation; teaches them about their power; and leads them through filling out the form. (Using the same form, 18 year olds register, while 16 and 17 year olds preregister, and then automatically become registered the day they turn 18.)
Our in-class approach is grounded in the data that has emerged since 25 states adopted Automatic Voter Registration. Embedded into the mandatory interaction citizens have at the Department of Motor Vehicles, AVR begins an automated process that ends in the citizen’s being registered, unless they opt out. AVR raises registration rates by 5% or more. When it’s easier to opt-in than to opt out, a lot more people get registered.
That’s the principle behind teachers teaching voter readiness: it shifts the default from having to opt-in to register, to having to opt out to avoid it. Students practice filling out the form, online or on paper, as part of attending school. They can’t procrastinate, or avoid having misinformed beliefs challenged. They are offered the chance to opt-out of signing and submitting the form, but because they’re watching peers complete the task, they very rarely do. We looked at counties all over the country that boast extraordinary pre-registration rates, talking to election officials, and teachers in these communities. The common denominator was that teachers teach the form.
Depth of Influence, and Breadth of Coverage
High schools are the ONLY American institution where we can reach, teach, and register over 95% of voters born in any one year.
And teachers’ unique relationship of trust enables them to help students register quickly and effectively. Teachers can also offer many resources to help students navigate obstacles they may not want to confide to a peer: homelessness, ID issues, or special needs voting. And once they begin to facilitate pre-registration, most teachers continue to do so, with every student, year after year.
Ripple-Effect Potential
Not only does pre-registration create lasting turn-out gains, it has a enormous ripple-effect. Once students register, they often go home and register their unregistered parents to vote; they register their co-workers at their after school job; they register their younger siblings.
Our Organizing Muscle
Over 5,000 activists have volunteered for our projects, and they’ve contributed close to $800,000 in card and postage donations, and more in donated labor. We’re relentlessly data driven, and track our projects, down to every name we are reaching out to and every postcard we print.
Digital Student Outreach
Our Largest Generation Project’s packet of physical materials and digital resources are designed by real teachers and evaluated by real students.