Gen Z Punches Above Its Weight Class in the 2020 Election

Five first-time voters tell us the role casting a ballot plays in crafting the world they want to see

A volunteer shows the bar code that she gives to people to register to vote online at the Gen-Z Drive Up Voter Registration Event organized by BeWoke Vote on September 19, 2020 in Compton, California. Photo: Valerie Macon/Getty Images

If you’ve spent five minutes online or had at least one socially distanced conversation this year, two things became evident: This election is the most important in most people’s lifetimes, and the country hasn’t been this divided in decades.

But for young people whose political consciousness only began gaining traction in the shadows of President Donald Trump’s America and a global pandemic, the stakes are even graver.

Gen Z, those born between 1997 and 2012, make up 10% of eligible voters this election, up from 4% in 2016. Like generations prior, they’ve found their voices stifled by a political machine. But this time, the machine threatens to leave behind a world irreversibly defined by climate disasters, economic inequality, and global warfare.

Pakistani immigrant Shanaya Premjee,18, cried with her family after casting her first-ever ballot. First-generation college student Keala Uchoa, 19, mailed her ballot 1,600 miles away from home to vote. Swing state voter Aaron Daum, 20, waited in line three weeks before November 3 to vote early.