NextGen Arizona: Young voters ‘will make the difference in this election’

PHOENIX — With a clipboard full of voter registration forms in one hand and a water bottle in the other, 19-year-old Audry Ruiz walked up and down Tempe’s Mill Avenue registering potential voters last week – despite the extreme summer heat.

“We come to Mill pretty frequently because there’s a lot of traffic here,” she said.

It’s part of a statewide effort to get 20,000 young people like her signed up to vote by the midterm elections. Ruiz said school safety, college affordability and immigration are among the reasons why she got involved.

“I just refused to sit on the sidelines as everything was going on, and I felt like I needed to do my part,” she said.

The group NextGen Arizona leads the effort. They opened their first office in Phoenix in March with just 15 fellows. Now, they’ve doubled in size and have opened offices in other locations, including Flagstaff and Tucson. They’ve knocked on over 25,000 doors and registered more than 8,000 young people to vote.

Jalakoi Solomon, state director for NextGen Arizona, said they’re trying to reach young voters where they are.

“We are registering people to vote by going door to door,” she said. “We’re registering people to vote at festivals and concerts and other big community events – farmers markets. Just by standing on populated corners and trying to reach young people where they are.”

Monday was the last day to register to vote in Arizona’s primary elections. Solomon said they had been busy registering young voters before that deadline and added their efforts go beyond the August primaries.

They planned to canvass more than 25 college and university campuses across the state in August. Their plans included tabling events and teaming up with student organizations on campus to hold voter registration events.

“In the month of August, our goal is to register 7,000 new young people,” Solomon said. “So what we’ve done over the course of four months, we’re trying to do in one month.”

She said this year is turning out to be one that’ll see a lot more young voters involved. She added she hopes candidates are paying attention.

“Young people have a voice,” Solomon said. “Young people are powerful and really can and will make the difference in this election.”

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