EMBs can assess their organizational
capacity to enhance youth participation and reflect on their goals and values,
governance, human resources policies, and general planning.
A first prerequisite to foster
inclusion of youth in electoral processes is ensuring that young people are
positioned at all levels within the structure of EMBs. Although EMBs often
deploy many young people as voting staff at the time of an election, especially
if they require tech-savvy staff, youth remain underrepresented at the higher
level because they often do not have the experience required for these
positions. Research[i]
in the European Union found no instances of the regulated participation of
young people, representatives of youth organizations, or experts on youth
issues within the advisory boards of EMBs. The 2015 report, “Young People and
Democratic Life in Europe,”, highlighted explicitly the lack of strategies to
get more young people on EMB boards.[ii]
The lack of inclusion of young people
across EMB structures is unfortunate because employing more young people can
have many advantages. For example:
- EMBs can profit from in-house
knowledge and experience from youth to understand youth challenges and develop
successful strategies to engage youth in electoral processes.
- Young people are — in general — more
familiar with new communication tools and as such can contribute to the
development and implementation of comprehensive online voter education
campaigns.
[i] Tomaž
Deželan, ‘‘Young People and Democratic Life in Europe: What Next After the 2014
European Elections?", European Youth Forum, 2015, www.youthup.
eu/app/uploads/2015/11/YFJ_YoungPeopleAndDemocraticLifeInEurope_B1_web-9e4bd8be22.pdf.
[ii] Deželan,
‘‘Young People and Democratic Life in Europe."
