Low awareness among young people ahead of Senedd election

At the Senedd election in 2021, 16 and 17-year-olds were able to vote for the very first time.

But many young people across Wales are still not engaged with the political process, with one poll suggesting that only 14% of 11 to 25-year-olds were aware of election on 7 May.

There's a lot of change at this election - with new constituencies, more Senedd numbers and a new voting system.

And a range of initiatives have been brought in to get more young people interested, but how effective could they be?

Dr Louis Bromfield is part of a team at Swansea University, who have designed Horse Race Politics - a website where people can predict what turnout will be, which party will be the largest in the Senedd, and so on.

"At the moment we have 10 races that are live and open... covering all sorts of aspects of the upcoming Senedd election.

"We've pitched certain parties head-to-head, and it's really interesting to see the diversity of opinions that people have, as well as being able to see predictions change over time," he said.

A poll by the Electoral Commission showed that only 14% of 11 to 25-year-olds knew about the Senedd election, while 72% said they wanted to hear more in school about how democracy works and 21% said they had learnt about politics in class in the past year.

But students at Cowbridge Comprehensive School in the Vale of Glamorgan said they were as "interested in politics just as adults are".

Teifion said: "Before it used to be a lot of people who were a lot older and I think a lot of young people might see that and thought 'we're not important, we're not represented'.

"I think that sentiment still carries today, where you have younger people who aren't engaged in politics because they think they won't have much impact."

Ffion said: "The changing of the voting system can be so confusing."

While Tomos added that his friends were "not really interested in it".

"I'm studying politics, people in my class they're highly politically engaged, more than my friends, so hearing their opinions it's quite interesting."

Imogen said: "You want to feel as though someone's speaking directly to you, not just someone in your constituency.

"You want to feel your engagement with politics is through a person who will represent you.

"I think that's why people are deterred from engaging with it because they don't feel it's going to affect them personally."

Students at Coleg Menai in Llangefni, Anglesey, had a range of issues they want the new government to tackle.

Emily said: "My biggest concern is the state of the healthcare system, specifically wait times.

"The wait list for certain treatments can be years.

"I think up to two years they're trying to cap it at, but I still think that's ridiculous in itself."

Brianna added that she had been trying to find a part-time job but was struggling.

"I've been applying since last year and a lot of people in my friend group also struggle."

While Jac said: "I'm only 18, but I've seen the climate change.

"We're getting more storms now than we used to.

"We have more snow more often than we used to. It's not normal."

Another way to try to reach the young vote is through social media accounts like Senedd Explained.

Founder Maddy Dhesi said they were ramping up their content as the election was only a couple of weeks away "to get the message out there".

"We're working on doing takeovers with all the Senedd party leaders.

"We're working on creating vlogs for candidates, to get them to communicate their message and their personality and what they're about, to young people and social media users in a social media friendly way."

There is more information available than ever about how to vote and who to vote for but the question is, with everything else going on in the world at the moment, will the policies on offer be enough to persuade young people to lend anyone their vote?