TN has the lowest youth voter turnout — here's one thing that can help
Chattamatters is partnering with WTCI-PBS, La Paz, and WUTC to launch a new series for young and future voters.
By William Newlin
Voter turnout in Tennessee is low. The state ranked fifth-to-last in turnout for the 2020 presidential election despite record-breaking numbers both in Tennessee and across the United States. In the 2022 midterm elections, Tennessee’s turnout rate was second-to-last.
Drilling down into youth participation paints a bleaker picture. Just 12.7% of Tennessee’s eligible young people (aged 18-29) voted in 2022, the lowest rate in the country. Yet young people care about the same pressing concerns as older voters, from inflation and cost of living to good jobs, gun violence, and climate change.
Tufts University’s civic engagement center, CIRCLE, found that contrary to Tennessee's election results, youth political engagement is increasing nationwide. Engagement includes encouraging others to vote, volunteering in campaigns, and even donating to politicians.
Enter Our Voices
Our Voices | Chattanooga is here to boost local engagement. A partnership between Chattamatters (and our parent organization The Enterprise Center), La Paz, WTCI, and WUTC, we’re producing nonpartisan, bilingual civics lessons packaged for young people. They’re short, straightforward videos demystifying democracy and putting a little humor back into civil discourse.
Upcoming topics include:
Why local politics matter
When to trust information on social media
The impact of low voter turnout in a community
Ways to stay civically engaged even if you can’t vote
You can go to ourvoicescha.org to learn more and get shareable surveys that help us deliver useful, relevant content to young people’s feeds. Videos come out on Friday afternoons on YouTube, Instagram, Facebook, and — if that’s your jam — TikTok, too.
Research has shown how civics education and electoral encouragement leads to greater participation. By providing that encouragement, we want to see the region’s younger generation match their peers’ enthusiasm for making their voices heard.
Our teachers are already doing the work
Last school year, there were 59 recipients of the Governor’s Civic Seal, which recognizes schools that “prioritize teaching our nation’s history and civic values,” per the Tennessee Department of Education.
The vast majority of those recipients were in Hamilton County, meaning over half of local schools are in the 96th percentile for civics education in the state. They go above and beyond Tennessee’s standard civics requirements: a test for regular high school graduation and two civics-related projects across grades 4-12.
By working with local civics-minded educators, Our Voices | Chattanooga plans to build on that momentum by getting our information into even more classrooms.
Know a young person who would like to participate?
We’re looking for high school and college students who want to be the face of Our Voices | Chattanooga. They can get experience in front of the camera, sharing civics stories and vital voting information under the guidance of our expert media partners.
If you or someone you know might be interested, send them this email and ask them to submit an application here!
They can also complete our short survey exploring civic attitudes and identifying the kind of information they want to see.