Two organizations in San Francisco—Youth for San Francisco (YSF) and GrowSF— have very different strategies including designed voter guides and social media advocacy to increase political engagement among youth in SF.
YSF is a non-partisan youth-led advocacy organization educating, engaging, and activating San Francisco youth to become civically and politically engaged citizens through social media. GrowSF is a non-partisan organization with the goals of educating voters on local issues and advocating for change through voting.
However, educating people about local politics requires a multipronged strategy, and is particularly important for youth voters. GrowSF’s voter guide takes a comprehensive approach to local politics, explaining every single San Francisco proposition, bill and candidate, “We try to summarize every single bill and political issue down to their most essential points, so voters can make the most informed decisions,” Steven Buss, a Director at Grow SF, said. Moreover, to maximize the reach of the voter guide, this voter guide is written at a 12th grade reading level to make it accessible to voters without a college education, which includes many youth voters.
GrowSF’s commitment to educating about rank-choice voting is another good example of how voter education is particularly impactful for youth voters. Rank-choice voting is a relatively recent change to San Francisco ballots that allows voters to rank multiple candidates in order of preference. Voters who list more candidates have more voting power than voters who only list a single candidate. GrowSF has found that many San Francisco voters rank only a small portion of candidates. “Wealthy white progressives tend to rank more people than everyone else,” Buss said. By educating voters about the advantages of ranking more candidates, GrowSF is increasing the impact that less experienced voters have, including younger voters who may be less experienced with this new voting mechanism.
On the other hand, detailed organizational websites and flyers may be less effective for younger people and digital natives. According to a study from the Pew Research Center, young adults (ages 18-29) seek information from social media more frequently than older adults. In addition, Pew reports that these young adults trust information received from social media at similar levels to their trust in major news companies.
To account for this approach to gaining information, YSF takes a more tailored approach to educating young people. “We focus on youth through posting explainers, and using social media to inform young people about different civic opportunities,” Annie Mai, incoming Executive Director of YSF, said. For YSF, social media is a valuable vehicle to spread information and to publicize in-person events.
Mai stresses the importance of encouraging young people to pre-register to vote even before they turn 18. “Voter turnout is very low for people ages 18-21, much more than other age groups.” Mai explained. According to the Pew Research Center, Gen Z and Millennial individuals voted for Biden over Trump by about 20 points, while older generations were more evenly divided between the two candidates. For Biden’s tight victory in the 2020 presidential election, young adults were a deciding factor, just as they could be in this year’s upcoming national election. Young people could play a similar role in local politics.
It is widely recognized that this is a pivotal moment in national politics with incredibly important issues at stake in the upcoming presidential election. Local issues can be just as consequential, affecting “housing, transit, schools, and public safety”, according to GrowSF. Additionally, voting is a very important part of being American. “I believe voting is one of the most important things we can do, especially because not all countries can freely vote like we can in America. Not a lot of people take advantage of that, especially in underrepresented communities. It’s our most powerful way to make change.” stated Mai. Working towards civic engagement in youth and educating is key to making change.
