Youth focused get-out-the-vote group New Majority has undertaken work in Kamloops in an attempt to boost turnout for the upcoming municipal election.

While get-out-the-vote work is common in federal and provincial elections, little has been done to help boost municipal election turnout, which has historically hovered around 30 percent.

But among youth, that number is figured to be even lower. Age-related voter turnout data is hard to come by and not provided by Elections BC, but New Majority executive director Amanda Munday figures turnout for those ages 18 to 24 is around 20 to 25 percent at best.

“We always ask people we approach if they know an election is happening. It’s usually about 20 percent awareness for a municipal election,” Munday said.

Over the summer, New Majority took advantage of the Canada Summer Jobs program to hire two local students to host events that would attract young people, including a movie night and a drag event. Munday called both events a success and said the drag event, called Divas for Democracy, was particularly well attended.

“The design of this event was, hey, just come out for a drag night. That then allows us to talk about the election and bring people in for fun,” Munday said.

In the 2025 federal election, the nonpartisan organization took credit for a seven percent increase in youth voter turnout. To achieve that, the organization ballooned from a permanent staff of five to more than 800 workers staffing phone banks and door-to-door canvassing during the election.

New Majority is focused on face-to-face interactions rather than online advocacy and discussions, and for good reason.

“When you rely on digital communications and algorithms, we know tech companies will serve people content they engage with already,” Munday said.

The organization applied for Canada Summer Jobs grants strategically, focusing on areas with a lot of young people but low voter turnout. Recently, it has focused on the Ontario and B.C. municipal elections, the Quebec provincial elections and the upcoming referendum in Alberta.

“They’re given eight weeks to host community driven events, all designed, planned, promoted and executed by that young person, who is given a small budget,” Munday said.

“So we know that anything we do in Kamloops will at least boost awareness, and ideally boost turnout,” she said.

Data was also collected at the event and those in attendance could opt to give their information for later contact. New Majority plans to use that data in a phone bank to further its get-out-the-vote message closer to election day.

Munday said engaging young people about municipal elections can be particularly effective, since they are usually about relating to people, rather than parties.

“It’s unbelievable, because to me, all issues in some way intersect with municipal policies and governance. Everything has municipal oversight in some way, but there’s a misconception that municipal politics is just about garbage and bike lanes. It’s so much more expansive than that,” she said.