100 Days to Go: Are Young Voters Ready?

Fewer than half of Hamilton’s eligble 18-24 year olds are enrolled to vote, with some first-time voters saying they are struggling to find information about how to vote or who to vote for.

With 100 days to go before the general election, Electoral Commission figures show young voters make up 13.4% of Hamilton’s eligible voting population, but less than half are currently enrolled.

Electoral Commisssion Operations Deputy Cheif Executive Anusha Guler says that they try to “reach out to young people and the first-time voters in lots of ways, including targeted advertising, social media, news media, and in person when we attend community events”.

She explained that they also haver a youth action plan in place to encourage more young and first-time voters, focusing information and ‘youth advocates’ to schools, education providers, sports clubs, and service providers.

Psychology student Jasmine says, “the current information available to first time voters is good,” but she wishes it were more accessible.

Since only becoming eligble this year, she has “struggled” with finding the right information on how to vote, saying “I feel like it would be better if there was a singular guide on how to enrol, how to vote, where to vote… [the enrolement website] wasn’t initially clear on everything I needed to do, or have, to vote”.

For engineering student Daniel, his access and knowledge of the local candidates are equally as limited.

He says, “I think if I wanted to know my local candidates, I’d need to actually sit down and research it, there’s not enough information out where I could see it every day”.

Daniel said that the lack of information about the candidates around school and social media is making him feel “lost” with who to vote for.