Staff Report
The Indiana Citizen
September 22, 2026
ReCenter Indiana is launching a six-week video ad campaign aimed at encouraging young adults to go to the polls and exercise their right to vote this November.
The 30-second videos, directed at 18- to 24-year-olds in Marion, Hamilton and Boone counties, will appear on YouTube, Instagram and connected TV services, including Netflix, HBO and Peacock. Supported by a $50,000 grant from the Glick Fund, the video ads are projected to generate more than 1.5 million impressions.
Young adult voters have become a special focus of ReCenter Indiana’s work to strengthen civic engagement and voter participation. Only 39% of Hoosier young adults voted in the November 2024 presidential election, according to Tufts University’s CIRCLE 2024 report on youth voting. That was one of the lowest rates in the country and well below the national young adult turnout rate of 47%.
“Young adults matter, and their voices belong in every election,” Adrianne Slash Tucker, vice president of the nonpartisan, nonprofit ReCenter Indiana, said in a press release. “Our research helped us understand the obstacles young Indiana voters face. We designed this campaign to build confidence in the voting process and remind young Hoosiers that their votes matter.”
ReCenter Indiana developed the campaign in response to the findings in its own 2025 research study of young adults who do not vote. The research included a survey of 307 residents from the ages of 18 to 34, living in Marion, Hamilton and Boone counties, who were registered to vote in the 2024 general election but did not cast a ballot.
The findings showed the young adult nonvoters were discouraged rather than apathetic, according to ReCenter Indiana. Although they said they care about their communities, they often feel ignored by government or believe that their votes do not make a difference.
Moreover, ReCenter Indiana found 45% of young Hoosiers said they had never voted. Those nonvoters were more likely than other young adults to say that they distrusted the electoral process or that they did not know anything about the candidates and issues.
The videos are designed to boost participation in elections, ReCenter Indiana said. Recorded in Lawrence, Carmel and Zionsville during the May primary, the videos show young voters before and immediately after casting their ballots. They talk about why they are voting from the importance of choosing to participate in democracy to the excitement of receiving an “I Voted” sticker.
“Instead of actors reading scripts, our videos feature authentic, young Hoosier voters – saying in their own words – why they’re enthusiastic about voting,” Jocelyn Vare, executive director of ReCenter Indiana, said in a press release. “And, importantly, these voting experiences are built around the invitation, ‘Hey, can I vote with you?’”
ReCenter Indiana cited to research that supports this peer-to-peer approach. Research over more than two decades has shown this approach is more effective than any other. The Turnout Nation 2019 study found registered voters were 13.2 percentage points more likely to cast a ballot when they were encouraged to do so by someone they knew.
Young adults in the three target counties will see ads specific to their respective counties. Each 30-second video refers viewers to a county-specific ReCenter Indiana webpage with practical information about voter registration, identification requirements, early voting, Election Day voting, wait times and the Election Protection hotline (866-Our-VOTE or 866ourvote.org).
All nine videos are available now on ReCenter Indiana’s YouTube playlist.
Key dates for the 2026 general election:
Dwight Adams, an editor and writer based in Indianapolis, edited this article. He is a former content editor, copy editor and digital producer at The Indianapolis Star and IndyStar.com, and worked as a planner for other newspapers, including the Louisville Courier Journal.
The Indiana Citizen is a nonpartisan, nonprofit platform dedicated to increasing the number of informed and engaged Hoosier citizens. We are operated by the Indiana Citizen Education Foundation, Inc., a 501(c)(3) public charity. For questions about the story, contact Marilyn Odendahl at marilyn.odendahl@indianacitizen.org.
