Young Victorians head to the polls fired up, fed up and glued to their feeds

The Victorian Electoral Commission has put a number on the youth vote: 18 to 44-year-olds will account for 44 per cent of ballots cast in this month's state election, making them pivotal to the result. Monash University politics associate professor Zareh Ghazarian said thousands of first-time voters will have a huge impact on who wins, and that their decisions could be the key to any party taking a seat.

The concerns driving them are local. Mildura youth council deputy mayor Ollie Edens, a recent high school graduate, is heading to Melbourne because the training course he needs isn't offered at home, and he wants more support for young people to stay in the regions. Wodonga student Jack Dumsday, who uses a wheelchair, called his city's bus network abysmal and wants it fixed.

Charlie Bradbury, 22, is approaching her vote in the Ovens Valley electorate as a choice between the lesser of evils, with a gender-based focus because she calls the violence against women epidemic abysmal. The Greens' pitch on rent freezing and publicly owned local supermarkets appeals to her. She's noticed One Nation's national surge since 2025 — including four lower house seats in South Australia — and said it feels like her generation has taken a step backwards.

GetUp's Victorian campaign director Conal Feehely said young people are frustrated, facing a lower standard of living than their parents, huge student debt, steep rent rises and no clear path to owning a home. He argued they are more of a blank canvas than other demographics, which opens the door to online algorithms shaping their politics.

Not everyone is engaged. Sarah Clayton, a 21-year-old Benambra voter on NESAY's youth advisory committee, said she feels uninformed and that politics rarely surfaces in her social media feeds, adding that the donkey vote has become popular in her generation and schools should teach more about it. Last month, 17-year-old Hamish Knight and Dylan Stockwell organised a rally against One Nation that drew about 100 students through Bendigo.