The Tauranga teens getting youth down to the voting booth

Mount Maunganui College students Samuel Taylor left and Louis Donovan. Photo / George Novak

To make something appealing to young people, it needs to be quick, easy and, ideally — offer the chance of getting something for free.

So a group of Tauranga youth has made voting in this year's election just that.

The website Brews to Outvote Boomers was set up by the Tauranga Youth Advisory Group and Mount Brewing Co as a way to make voting simple, fun and appeal to the younger generation.

The page opens with a blurb saying "remember when we cried as kids and our parents said 'I'll give you something to cry about.'"

"We thought they'd give us time out, but instead, they gave us a broken housing market, giant student loans, and a dying planet."

The page aims to drive youth to the voting booths to "outvote the boomers" and outlines a simple four-step model that explains the voting process with links and all.

Two Tauranga teens Louis Donovan and Sam Taylor were the key drivers behind the project.

Taylor said they had been tasked to get more youth to the voting booths in this local body election.

The pair approached a local creative communication agency to help create the website and put together a voting event.

"Young people don't vote because the postal ballot process is archaic and inaccessible to many people."

He says it is also not talked about among young people as they fail to make the connection between how local government decisions affect their lives.

"It's important that young people vote so that candidates are more reflective of all demographics present in our city."

The goal was to create an appealing and straightforward way to explain the process to young people and at the same time make it fun, Donovan says.

He said too often, people were told the same thing all the time, so they wanted to take a different approach to voting.

They will be holding a voting event on October 4, where people can bring their forms and ID to vote at Tauranga's Our Place.

The event will have live music, cold brews and the first 150 voters will even receive free dumplings.

"If you feed them, they will come," Taylor says.

He says the more people, the better and no boomers will be harmed if they want to come down and vote too at the event.

To find out more, people can head to the Outvote Boomers website.