Launch of change.je campaign to get voters engaged

Monday 14 April 2014

A group of volunteers are taking on one of the toughest challenges imaginable – they are going to try to get people engaged in Island politics.

An independent project called change.je has been launched today to reach out to students, graduates and young professionals and engage them in the political process ahead of this year’s elections. The founder of the project says that it’s independent of the States, and that he wants it to be a creative, effective and trusted source of information on local politics.

Christian May says that not enough is being done to engage younger voters, and that the website will include polling, discussion forums, FAQs about the Jersey political process and opinion pieces written on a variety of topics, including the economy and taxation, healthcare, education and government priorities.

He said: “We want to give young people the tools to identify, learn about, and take action on the issues that affect their lives, and leverage their power in the political process.

“We are stuck in what is best described as a cycle of neglect. Because political candidates in Jersey do not target young people and their issues during the election cycle, those young people in turn do not feel energised to register and to vote. In elections that follow, new candidates believe that young people in the Island cannot be politically engaged and so do not target them; and so the vicious cycle continues. The net result is that we have a large, disenfranchised proportion of the population who, year on year, are less inclined to become involved in Island politics. This has to change.”

You can find out more about the project through the change.je website, their Facebook page at www.facebook.com/changejersey or by following them on Twitter at @changejersey.