Unbound and Undeterred: Being a Young Independent

image
Julia HemsworthJulia Hemsworth
Published: 25 Mar, 2021
2 min read

If you’re a young voter like us, you’re probably tired of politics as they are now. Tired of every aspect of your life being a political issue. Tired of the restrictive grip of the two major parties making you jump through hoops to vote in critical primary elections or barring you from them entirely. It’s no secret that the major parties have been taking advantage of the way we engage with politics to guilt and scare us into their camp. But what you may not know is that 40% of Americans refuse to comply with this party-policed status quo.

Being an independent does not mean you're a moderate or remain in the middle. More and more people are pulling back the curtain on our democracy and deciding to move forward by abandoning their party affiliation – and the biggest blow of all may be coming from young voters like us, who increasingly never register to a party to begin with.

With such a large group of new voters entering a system that, upsettingly, does not want anything to do with them, we think it’s time young independent voters come together and create our own space where we can build creative solutions to our country’s painfully divisive democracy. Through Independentvoting.org, we’re launching a youth initiative aimed at connecting and empowering young independent voters like us who are interested in doing more. Our first Zoom event, Unbound and Undeterred: Being a Young Independent, is taking place on Wednesday, March 31st at 7pm ET. If you are under 32 and consider yourself independent, join us! Register for the event here.

We don’t have to settle for a path towards unity begrudgingly slapped together by the two-party system – a true path already exists in the 40% of Americans who have chosen political independence.


Signed,

Julia Hemsworth, Staten Island, New York

Devon Martinez, Colorado Springs, Colorado

Ron Dumas, Asheville, North Carolina

IVP Donate

Members of the Youth Organizing Committee at Independent Voting

You Might Also Like

broken california map
EXCLUSIVE: California Commissioner Says Lawmakers Gutted Their Funding BEFORE Prop 50
The fate of California’s independently drawn congressional districts will be decided on November 4, when voters weigh in on a legislative gerrymander and the suspension of congressional maps from the state's independent Citizens Redistricting Commission (CRC) under Proposition 50....
08 Oct, 2025
-
8 min read
fl-let-us-vote
Poll Shows Overwhelming Support for Opening Florida’s Primaries to 3.4M Independent Voters
A new statewide poll finds near-unanimous agreement among both Democratic and independent voters that Florida’s primaries should be opened to the state’s 3.4 million “No Party Affiliation” (NPA) voters who are currently shut out of taxpayer-funded elections....
10 Oct, 2025
-
3 min read
Proposition 50 voter guide
California Prop 50: Partisan Power Play or Necessary Counterpunch?
November 4 marks a special election for what has become the most controversial ballot measure in California in recent memory: Proposition 50, which would circumvent congressional districts drawn by the state’s independent redistricting commission for a legislative-drawn map....
01 Oct, 2025
-
9 min read