Aug. 30 (UPI) -- Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting survivor David Hogg and New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced an initiative to promote voter registration Thursday.
Appearing on MSNBC's Morning Joe, Hogg and de Blasio introduced Mayors For Our Lives, a bipartisan effort including more than 50 mayors throughout the country to register people between the ages 18 and 29 to vote.
"What we're doing with Mayors for Our Lives is we're announcing a campaign that's bipartisan, with Republicans and Democrats, to register a new generation of voters," Hogg said.
The mayors involved in the initiative pledged to provide grater access to voter registration forms for high school and college students, establish registration goals and encourage voter registration campaigns.
Related
"We're going to reach younger folks, students even at the high school level getting ready to vote and beyond, and they're going to be game changers in our society," de Blasio said.
In the wake of the Feb. 14 mass shooting, Hogg and other Parkland survivors founded March for Our Lives, a student-led initiative to promote gun safety legislation, an issue he and de Blasio said is driving young voters.
"When it comes to gun safety, what I hear from younger voters is uncompromising. They believe it's a matter of life and death. They're right," de Blasio said. "What David and his colleagues have done has changed American politics and awoken a ... sleeping giant, which is younger voters."
Hogg added young people are angry about the state of gun control legislation and hope for Democrats and Republicans to unify the country.
"The issue of gun safety is not Democrat or Republican. It's an American issue that we face as a country," Hogg said. "The only way we're ever going to solve that is by working together as Democrats and Republicans and as Americans to solve this issue and registering everybody to vote."
He also said young and newly registered voters contributed to Florida Democratic gubernatorial candidate Andrew Gillum's victory in the state's primary election Tuesday.
"Polls do not register people that are newly registered a lot of the time," Hogg said. "They don't expect young people to go out."
Hogg added the March for Our Lives initiative has contributed to an increase in voter registration in Florida.
"Our team from March For Our Lives Orlando helped promote voter registration so much that it went up 90 percent in Florida, youth registration is up 41 percent," he said.
