The Student PIRGs’ New Voters Project and Working Assets, in cooperation with researchers from the University of Michigan and Princeton University, recently released a study demonstrating the effectiveness of using text / SMS messages to mobile phones to mobilize young voters in the November 2006 elections. The study found that text message reminders to new voters increased an individual’s likelihood of voting by 4.2 percentage points.
You can access the study here.
References / Past Projects
The New Voters Project is a nonpartisan effort to register young people and get them to the polls on Election Day. Since launching the New Voters Project in late 2003, we have been doing this work for two reasons. First, we believe democracy is strongest when citizens participate and for too long, young people haven't been full participants. Second, we believe the best way to get political leaders to pay attention to young people and their issues is to demonstrate that young people are a viable constituency that can be mobilized using tried and true techniques.
