Getting People to Actually Vote

Apparently the way to do it is to make them think that voting is "cool":

For years, politicians have beseeched citizens to do their part for democracy by telling them about the dire problem of nonvoting: Barely half of eligible Americans cast a ballot in presidential elections. But what if, instead, politicians describe the glass as half-full?

In an experiment conducted during the 2005 New Jersey gubernatorial election, Harvard's Prof. Rogers and Yale political scientist Alan Gerber randomly assigned voters to get a phone call with one of two messages that relied on the same underlying set of facts—but cast those facts in dramatically different terms. In one, the caller's script said that "in the most recent election for New Jersey governor, voter turnout was the lowest it had been in over 30 years." The other reported that "in last year's election the vast majority of eligible New Jersey voters actually voted. It was the highest election turnout in decades." Those who heard the second message turned out to vote at a rate five points higher than those who were presented with the more dismal view. The lesson for candidates: Stop begging your supporters to do their democratic duty and instead direct them to join the crowd.