There's a lot that we don't know about the 2024
election, like who the candidates will be
or which campaign Beto O'Rourke is going to lose.
But as someone who headed up youth issues at the White
House, I can tell you that if history is any indicator,
we already know what one of the big talking points
is going to be.
Every election, it's like, oh,
the young people are coming. Young people are coming.
And, usually, they don't come.
They just don't show up.
Are you hearing me, nieces?
I was having this conversation tonight.
They don't.
Someone said, this convention was not--
they're in their 20s-- was not made for us.
We did--
That's because you don't vote.
I said, you guys don't vote.
Yeah, because you don't vote.
They never ever vote. They complain about everything.
Why would people cater to you if you never come out?
Sorry.
Not to be annoying, but we're with NBC News.
And I'm just trying to figure out,
anybody here going to vote in the election on November 6?
Anybody?
Nobody's going to vote.
REPORTER: What can get younger voters
to actually turn out to vote?
You know, turn out for what?
[DJ SNAKE AND LIL JON, "TURN DOWN FOR WHAT"]
You've got your own theme song, Gadi.
[laughs] Yeah.
[laughter]
Well, young people aren't going to be voting now.
The point is the media loves to whine
about young people not voting.
But what gets much less attention
is that the establishment feels so threatened by the power
of young voters that they actually
try to get them to not vote.
To many in the establishment, low youth turnout
is not a problem.
It's a goal.
And that's what I want to talk about in the latest
installment of Long Story Short.
[cheering]
Let's say that a political party wants
to suppress the youth vote.
What are some things they might try to do?
Their best bet is to put restrictions
on college students.
Because for the most part, they're
all young except for that one guy
who used to sit in the back of your sociology lecture.
What was his deal?
Was that like an inspiring thing
or like a 21 Jump Street situation?
Anyway, one thing that they try to do
is to target student IDs.
In some states, you can't use a school ID to vote,
even though for a lot of students
it's the only thing showing that they live in the state.
And don't tell me that they aren't
legitimate residents, OK?
College students pay local taxes for four years.
And the dumb ones up to six.
[laughter]
One of those states is Texas, where you can't use
your student ID to vote, but you can use your gun permit,
which sure feels like a law made
by Republicans to make it easier for other Republicans
to vote.
It's basically like a liberal state letting you vote if you
still wear your COVID mask.
Another thing they try to do is move
voting booths off campuses.
Now, this is a big deal for college students
since they're less likely to have a car.
If they do know someone with a car,
it's usually that, like, kind of hot but sort of sketch
dude with a 2007 Subaru that, like, reeks of weed, and all
the seat belts are missing.
And it's just, like, is voting for state assembly really
worth getting car herpes?
When it comes to trying to make polling places inaccessible,
the state of Texas is also at the forefront.
Texas Republicans are pushing a bill
that would ban voting booths from every campus
across the state.
Voting rights advocates are slamming a Texas
lawmaker's plan to remove polling
places from college campuses.
REPORTER: Now, young voters favored
Democrats by nearly a 30-point margin in the midterms.
But the Republican who's behind this proposal
tells ABC 13's Briana Conner it is not about that.
Republican State representative Carrie Isaac
says it's a matter of school safety.
I don't believe it's wise that we
invite people onto our campuses that
would not otherwise be there.
REPORTER: Texas Southern University freshman Jordan
Jones points out that public universities like TSU
already have open campuses.
Our library that's literally right there is also public.
Anybody can go in there and use it.
So I feel like there shouldn't be much of a difference
whenever it comes to voting.
She has a good point.
The library is already open to the public.
Although knowing Texas Republicans,
that other lady is just going to be like,
this student is right.
We should also ban "liberries."
[laughter]
I realize.
Thank you.
I realize that so far I've given you Republican examples.
But to be fair, that doesn't mean all voter suppression
is committed by Republicans-- just like 98% of it.
But there are Democrats who do engage in voter suppression.
And I know this from personal experience.
During the Democratic primary in 2007,
I lobbied a local election board
in North Carolina that wanted to remove voting machines
from a campus where there were a lot of Obama Democrats
and send those machines to a wealthy suburb, where
there were a lot of non-Obama Democrats.
Although that's obviously not how they put it.
They were just like, OK, we're doing this
because college students are just less likely to vote
than people in the suburbs.
And then I was like, oh, well, maybe college students don't
vote because you keep [bleep] taking
their voting machines away!
[cheering]
And then I lost.
Sorry.
While those are some of the more common obstacles that you
might encounter as a young voter,
it can get a lot more creative.
REPORTER: Welcome to North Carolina A&T.
It's the largest historically Black
college in the country and a big Democratic voting block.
But when you look at a congressional map,
A&T looks like two separate colleges.
It's split between district 6 and district 13.
So if you move from this dorm over to that dorm,
you're in a different district with different representatives
and a different polling place.
REPORTER: By splitting the campus
into two separate congressional districts,
it diluted the power of A&T's collective voice.
So what was once one congressional district
with an African-American representative,
it is now two congressional districts with two
white Republican legislators.
Have you seen people discouraged
from voting because of this?
Not only do you get discouragement.
There's also not wanting to register at all.
It validates and affirms what young folks
are saying when they say that their votes don't count.
Yeah, that's a bummer.
And, honestly, I haven't seen college
students that disappointed since they
saw me in Van Wilder 2.
In my defense-- in my defense, that movie paid very well.
Yeah.
But, look, this is the point of it.
All of this is meant to freeze you out of the process
and discourage you from participating.
And I get it.
It's easy as a young person to get
demoralized and super high.
I'm not-- not sure why I mentioned that.
Sorry.
To be more clear, things are not hopeless.
You know that gerrymandering at A&T?
Well, it sparked a student revolt.
And after a court order reunified the school,
students there are now voting in record numbers.
Yeah, pretty great.
And it's not just them.
It's not just them.
Despite all of those barriers, young voters have shown
up big in recent elections.
In fact, last year, they may have made all the difference.
The Gen Z-ers, Millennials, they're now
voting in record numbers.
REPORTER: Gen Z voters, people born in 1997 and later,
are lapping their older millennial counterparts.
REPORTER: I know a lot of people talk
about young people talking about being
engaged but not being engaged.
We are seeing engagement.
The energy from these young folks is real.
REPORTER: They all but canceled out
the votes of their grandparents,
of senior citizens, who are some of the most reliable
voters out there and also some of the most
Republican voters out there.
If not for young people, we have a starkly different
result. We saw not a red wave.
We didn't see a blue wave, but we certainly
saw a young voter, Gen Z wave.
A Gen Z wave!
[cheering]
Come on!
Not a red wave, not a blue wave,
not a Millennial pink wave.
So remember when I said the establishment
feels threatened by you?
Well, that's because when you vote,
you often get a lot of the things to happen--
marriage equality, climate action,
and, yes, weed decriminalization.
It's young people who overwhelmingly
pushed to get this stuff done.
So keep it up.
Don't let them make you feel complacent.
Because long story short, you're powerful,
and that's why they're scared of you.
So go make them scared!
All right?