Dear Young People

This country belongs to whoever shows up.

And do you know who shows up for every election? Old people.

We were inspired by two strategic insights:

One, most voting campaigns try to inspire, remind, or shame you into voting. But trying to get someone to do something they don’t want to do triggers their defenses.

Two, voting is a binary behavior; either you vote or you don’t. And while there are many barriers on the path to voting, there are few on the path to not voting.  

Only 46% of people aged 18-34 voted in 2016. And instead of trying to find a better, cooler, scarier, or funnier way of telling these people to vote, we leaned into a familiar truth: sometimes telling a young person not to do something is the best way to get them to do it.

The 2018 midterms had the highest voter turnout for millennials. While we can’t take all the credit, we definitely did get people talking. From celebrity retweets to ample press coverage, our campaign sparked dialogue and action.

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Not every idea works across cultures. This one happened too. Organizations in India, Scotland, the Netherlands, Japan, and Taiwan took note, and with our permission, did versions of this for their own elections. 

It also inspired an equally effective COVID-era sequel.