Election Ready

Source: Center for Tech and Civic Life

By Sam Piha

The 2026 election offers a number of opportunities to engage youth people regardless of age. But these opportunities require input from youth, organizing and planning- so start program planning early. There is no better time for youth to be involved in making a change through the ballot box. We can frame these efforts as “meaningful participation,” “civic engagement,” “youth leadership” or “community service.” 


“Voting is a fundamental act of civic participation through which young people contribute to democracy. While it’s just one of many ways to engage in civic life, it is a powerful way for young people to make their voices heard and to have an impact on issues that affect them.” – Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE)

There are a number of organizations and initiatives that have designed curriculums, program tools and other materials to assist afterschool providers in their efforts to engage youth in the 2026 elections. 

“’The afterschool field is an essential partner in ensuring that all children have the ability to participate in immersive, relevant, and hands-on civic engagement opportunities.’ Not only are civic engagement strategies participatory strategies, they contribute to the positive development of youth and the health of our democracy.” – Afterschool Alliance

More information and resources can be found in our briefing paper, How Afterschool Programs Can Promote Civic Engagement and the Youth Vote in 2024. This paper was developed to encourage youth engagement in the 2024 election. The paper reviews and recommends a number of actions that you can utilize in your program. 

 

“4 million Americans turn 18 every year, but we estimate fewer than 30% are registered to vote.” – The Civics Center

Source: CIRCLE

 

WAYS YOUTH UNDER 18 CAN CONTRIBUTE TO ELECTIONS 

“Our youth feel that their voice matters even if they cannot vote.” - John Fuentes, Associate Director, Bay Area Community Resources (BACR) 

According to CIRCLE in Growing Voters: 18 Ways Youth Under 18 Can Contribute to Elections, “There are countless ways for young people under 18 to participate in democracy. These contributions can occur in a range of settings and have a wide-reaching influence. These ways of engaging are steps on a path to growing as a future voter and to help grow voters in your community:

• Support Your Family & Friends' Participation by asking them if they are eligible and registered to vote, and if necessary, bring them information to help them register. If they’re not eligible, ask them how they are going to participate 
• Help friends and family find reliable information about the election, the candidates, and important issues that they care about 
• Watch and discuss a local or national debate/forum with your family and friends 
• Organize or support conversations at school about elections and voting 
• Bring the Teaching for Democracy Alliance checklist or commitment to school leaders and work with them to make a plan to support student learning 

Uplift Stories & Issues You Care About 

• Do research on an issue/policy you’re interested in to find reliable information on the candidates’ stance on the issue, and then share your viewpoint with those who can vote 
• Fact check your research and then create media (e.g. images, videos, music) about candidates or issues you’re interested in and share them with others 
• Evaluate a range of news media coverage of the issues and candidates to understand how journalists are covering the election 
• Contact local media outlets about the issues you care about and offer to share your opinions and insights 
• Create media about the people and issues in a community that has few local media outlets or that you think hasn’t been portrayed accurately in election coverage 
• Tell stories about how youth of all ages—especially those from communities of color—are engaging in the election and share it with news organizations and social media so that a wider diversity of young people are better represented 

Be a Part of the Process 

Source: ED Week

• Find out if you can work at the polls on Election Day—many states allow 16- and 17-year-olds to do it! 
• Work with a local organization that is registering others to vote 
• Design posters with key information about how, when and where to vote, and put them up at school and in your community 
• Send your friends and family reminders of when and where to vote on Election Day—even drive them if they need a ride!” 

Millions of Youth Are Newly Eligible Voters in 2022

Source: Photo by Mikhail Nilov: https://www.pexels.com

By Sam Piha

The 2022 election offers a number of opportunities to engage older youth. We can frame these efforts as “meaningful participation”, “civic engagement”, “youth leadership” or “community service”. There are a number of organizations and initiatives that have designed curriculums, program tools and other materials to assist afterschool providers in their efforts to engage youth in the 2022 election. Consider working with youth to organize a voter registration event in your school. At the end of the blog, we list some resources on how youth can get involved.

Did you know that:

-“Young people who have turned 18 since the 2020 election are a sizable group that is diversifying the electorate and can have a decisive impact on the midterms. There are an estimated 8.3 million newly eligible young voters for the 2022 midterm elections—meaning, youth who have turned 18 since the previous general election in November 2020. These 18- and 19-year-olds comprise 16% of the 18-29 age group for the 2022 election.” - Peter de Guzman, Researcher

-Young people can pre-register to vote at the age of 16. There are a number of ways that youth can be involved in the 2022 election, even if they are not old enough to vote. These include sponsoring a voter registration event, supporting family and friend’s participation, uplifting stories and issues they care about, supporting a candidate’s campaign through volunteering or being part of the election process.

-“There are distorted “assumptions about young people and how they participate in political processes that are common and are often triggered by lack of understanding and/or by prejudice. These persistent assumptions inaccurately characterize the everyday experiences of most youth – who do not constitute a homogenous group – and can lead to discrimination of young people, negatively affecting their capacity to participate in political processes… Assumptions about young people that distort the actual picture include the following: 

• they are apathetic about and disengaged from politics – so, for example, they don’t bother voting
• they lack maturity, experience, and knowledge, implying they are not capable or intelligent enough to make informed decisions (such as when voting) and are easily manipulated
• they are “anti-state,” with a propensity for violence and extremism.” – The ACE Project

ELECTION VIDEO BY RAPPER, YELLOPAIN

We learned about how teachers and youth workers can use a video by rapper, Yellopain, entitled, "My Vote Don't Count," which can be viewed by clicking on the image below. 

Source: Yellopain, Youtube.com

RESOURCES

Below are a number of other resources that you can check out:

• Growing Voters: 18 Ways Youth Under 18 Can Contribute to Elections 
• Afterschool Alliance Election Toolkit
• Rock the Vote Democracy Class
• The Civics Center- Bringing Voter Registration to Your School

You can also learn more by exploring these websites:

• Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE)
• Afterschool Alliance
• Rock the Vote
• The Civics Center

EDUCATION CULTURE WARS AND AFTERSCHOOL

In recent months schools and educators have been attacked under the guise of critical race theory, parent rights and the call to ban certain books. We published three LIAS blogs and a briefing paper (14 pages) on this topic of the education culture wars. We also sponsored a webinar entitled, Education Culture Wars and Maintaining Bipartisan Support for Afterschool. We posted a recording of this webinar on our How Kids Learn Youtube channel, which quickly received over 700 views. 

New stories of the education culture wars continue to pepper the national news and we expect this to increase over the course of the upcoming election season. 

Below we list some new articles:

• 3 Ways to Avoid Hurdles for Social-Emotional Learning 
• A School Librarian Pushes Back on Censorship and Gets Death Threats and Online Harassment 
• As Rhetoric Heats Up, Many Parents Fear Politicians Are Using Children As ‘Political Pawns’ 
• Banned-Book Author: If a Book Isn’t in the School Library, ‘It Might as Well Not Exist’ 
• Most parents want classrooms to be places of learning, not political battlegrounds 
• ED Week Spotlight on Critical Race Theory