The Most Effective Way to Peer-Pressure Your Friends into Voting

Some tried-and-true strategies for getting your people to the polls

Photo by Mindy Schauer/Digital First Media/Orange County Register/Getty Images

Voter turnout has never been a strong suit in the United States. Just slightly over half of all eligible adults voted in the 2016 presidential election, which, according to the Pew Research Center, put the country toward the bottom of developed nations in a ranking of voter participation.

And when it comes to elections that don’t include a president, Americans seem even less interested. Some experts predict that next week will bring the highest midterm voter turnout in half a century — but their estimates still top out at around 45 to 50 percent. A similar surge is expected for voters between ages 18 and 29 (historically, the least likely age group to vote), 40 percent of whom are expected to show up at the polls.

The numbers are an improvement over past years, but this is no ordinary midterm election. Fierce partisan battles have erupted all over the country in response to the Trump administration’s policies. For trans people, people of color, Muslims, and members of other marginalized groups, getting people to vote can feel like a matter of life or death.

While politics alone can’t bring out the reluctant nonvoters, peer pressure might get some of them to the polls. In recent years, social science researchers have identified several tried-and-true techniques to encourage voter turnout. Here’s how to try them on your friends.

Help Them Make a Plan

Ask your friend about their voting plan the next time the two of you catch up, or take in-person steps to help them plan.

In 2008, a team of Harvard psychologists ran a study in which they had pollsters call unlikely voters in the days leading up to the election. Each call followed one of several scripts, reminding the person on the other end of the line about the importance of voting, asking if they intended to vote, or inquiring about their day-of logistics. By far, the calls that were the most effective in getting people to the polls were those in that last group, which asked three specific questions: what time they would vote, where they would be coming from, and what they would be doing beforehand. These questions pushed respondents to make a concrete “voting plan,” which increased their likelihood of actually voting.

This strategy may be even more persuasive when there’s already a relationship between the voter (your friend) and the person doing the questioning (you). The Harvard study also found that calls with a “conversational tone” were more effective than ones that sounded routine and scripted, suggesting that friendly connection plays a role in facilitating socially important behavior. Ask your friend about their voting plan the next time the two of you catch up, or take in-person steps to help them plan, like carpooling to a voting station or setting a time to fill out absentee ballots together at a café.

Throw a Voting Party

If you have the time and resources, throw your own voting festival.

It may seem strange to imagine now, but 150 years ago, voting was fun. As a team of political scientists described in a study published in the journal PS: Political Science and Politics, casting a ballot in the 19th century “was an engaging social experience, as voters at the polls talked with friends, threw down shots of free whiskey, listened to lively entertainment, and generally had a good time.”

By comparison, modern voting seems “funereal,” wrote the paper’s authors. “Our polling places have been drained of their celebratory elements, and the 85 percent rates of voter turnout that once accompanied them have disappeared from our collective consciousness.” Led by Elizabeth Addonizio, then a doctoral candidate in political science at Yale, the researchers wanted to know: Could bringing back the fun element of voting encourage participation in depressed precincts? The paper, which examined the impact of bring-out-the-vote “festivals” on election participation, found that the overall effect was positive: In some precincts, festivals increased voter turnout by as much as 6.5 percent.

So, if you have the time and resources, throw your own voting festival. Some political groups are even offering grants to pay for food trucks and other supplies for block parties or parades. If you want to do something on a smaller scale, invite your friends over for an Election Day gathering after work. Price of admission: your “I voted” sticker.

Use Social Media Shamelessly

It can also make participation feel exciting, an attitude shift that’s potentially longer-lasting.

Studies have found that when people see their friends sharing voting-related information online, they’re more likely to vote — and that the effect of online pressure can be more powerful than traditional, face-to-face methods.

Using social media to get friends to vote works on at least two fronts. Yes, a feed full of friends posting from outside their polling station can guilt people into voting by making it feel more obligatory — but it can also make participation feel exciting, an attitude shift that’s potentially longer-lasting. (Just make sure to get on Snapchat or Instagram, too, because people, especially young people, are leaving Facebook in droves.)

Offer Incentives for Voting — and Repercussions for Failing to Vote

Setting up a reward wouldn’t hurt, like a nice dinner where those who didn’t vote have to foot the bill.

You don’t have to make voting fun to get your friends to do it — turns out, creating immediate personal consequences to not voting can be just as effective, if not more so. A 2008 study found that when residents of an area received mail declaring that their voting records (that is, whether they voted or not) would be shared with the neighborhood, voter turnout in that area went up by more than 8 percent. The fear of looking bad, it seemed, was enough to get many people to the polls.

You probably shouldn’t try to foist voting accountability onto an entire unwilling neighborhood, but you could always get a group together to hold each other accountable. Maybe set up a group text to check in with each other on Election Day. And setting up a reward wouldn’t hurt, like a nice dinner where those who didn’t vote have to foot the bill.

Educate Them on Specific Policies and Politicians

If you want to get your friends to vote, providing them with information on the election may help, especially if you tailor your research to their interests.

It’s a lot easier to sit out Election Day if you don’t know what you’re voting for. Unfortunately, fact-heavy explanations of complex local issues aren’t always readily available, and research has shown that a lack of political knowledge can depress voter turnout, pushing some people to stay home because they don’t feel qualified.

If you want to get your friends to vote, providing them with information on the election may help, especially if you tailor your research to their interests. Do you have a friend who cares about the environment? Research which candidate’s voting record aligns more closely with environmentally friendly policies and tell your friend about them. How about health care? Tell them which politician has been taking the most money from major pharmaceutical donors. The more knowledge a person has on how issues could affect them, the more likely they are to feel personally invested in an election’s outcome. And with less than a week to go until Election Day, don’t be afraid to lay it on thick — at the end of the day, the best strategy is whichever one convinces your friend to get to the voting booth.