Students Demand Action, Everytown Launch Oregon Virtual Field Office Focused on Registering Young Voters— Mobilizing People Where They are During Pandemic

The Program Will be Driven by Oregon Students Demand Action Volunteers Using Virtual Tools to Register People in Their Online Networks

Oregon Students Demand Action Volunteers are Available for Interviews 

SALEM, Ore.  — Everytown for Gun Safety Action Fund (“Everytown”) and Students Demand Action, a part of Everytown, announced the launch of Oregon’s new Students Demand Action Virtual Field Office, focused on registering young voters virtually. In April, Everytown and Students Demand Action announced a $1.5 million program to register 100,000 young voters. 

With the launch of Oregon’s virtual field office, Students Demand Action volunteers will register voters, work to get out the vote, and engage young people in gun violence prevention campaigns, all from home while practicing social distancing. Volunteers will collaborate on various online platforms, such as Zoom, Slack, and more, and will be trained in relational organizing — an innovative way to engage existing social networks to have meaningful conversations in order to talk about the importance of voting, how to register, and why their vote matters.

“Our generation is committed to ending our nation’s gun violence crisis,” said Peren Tiemann, a volunteer with Lakeridge High School Students Demand Action and a member of the Students Demand Action National Advisory Board. “And that starts with electing gun safety candidates up and down the ballot. We’re committed to reclaiming our safety by registering young voters in Oregon, increasing voter turnout, and electing candidates who will fight to keep our communities and our families safe.”

Everytown is committing at least $1.5 million to the voter registration program, which will include more than a dozen paid organizers who will help lead efforts across battleground states. When it’s safe to organize in-person, organizers will continue with in-person voter registration efforts on college campuses, where they will recruit new Students Demand Action volunteers and train volunteers in effective voter registration tools and tactics. 

Students Demand Action’s voter registration initiative will include:

• Investing $1.5 million, including hiring at least a dozen paid organizers focused on registering voters in key battleground states;
• Establishing virtual field offices, where students will gather to strategize how to meet voter registration goals. Virtual field offices will have access to cutting-edge organizing tools and technology, including Zoom, Slack, Icebreaker, peer to peer texting tools and more, giving volunteers the tools they need to be successful in virtual voter registration efforts;
• Extensive training in relational organizing, which involves leveraging relationships to encourage others to vote. This organizing method has been proven to be more effective than traditional canvassing, allowing volunteers to register their friends, family, classmates, and acquaintances. Students Demand Action volunteers will deploy this tactic digitally, while continuing to practice physical distancing;
• Targeted online voter registration ads geared toward young people.