This Time We Decide, was a get-out-the-vote initiative targeting an increase in youth voter participation through a strategy of encouraging members to “vote social.” The framework of the campaign focused on empowering students to get to the polls by using positive language, and avoided promotion of traditional low levels of youth voters as a means to guilt students into voting in higher proportions. The campaign language stressed the urgency of the election given the close margins in many ridings, and the potential that young voters could decide the outcome of the election.
Outcome
Record numbers of youth voted in the 2015 Federal Election. Including an increase in first-time voters from 40.5% in 2011 to 58.3% in 2015. BC saw the largest increase in youth voter turnout in the 18-24 and 25-34 age demographics