Press & Media
About Tok the Vote
Tok the Vote is a creator-led coalition to empower Gen Z to vote and mobilize young leaders in the fight for progress. It is an organic social movement, amplifying the shifting power in modern politics. Tok the Vote provides opportunities and resources for the digital generation to initiate the next wave of change.
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Gen Z is a pivotal group in the 2020 election. This is their first as a major cohort of the electorate, and TikTok is their entertainment and information platform of choice. Tok the Vote helps first-time voters put their fingerprints all over the electoral process.
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Our immediate goal is to get Gen-Z registered to vote and advocating for the issues of their communities.
About the Founder
Colton Hess
Colton graduated from the Princeton School of Public and International Affairs in 2018 before moving to Seattle to work as a product manager at Amazon. The beginning of the pandemic was a time for deep self-reflection for Colton. Between the government’s egregious response to the pandemic and the increased spotlight on systemic racism and injustice in America, he launched Tok The Vote with the intent of getting Gen Z registered and voting. Through a coalition of young creators, the Tok The Vote team endeavors to use this online platform to drive social change and to empower them to be leaders in the fight for progress.
Recent Press
"Founded by TikTok creator Colton Hess, “the Tok The Vote team endeavors to use this online platform to drive social change and to empower them to be leaders in the fight for progress.” The campaign, which links to Vote.org’s registration portal, claims to already have hundreds of creators that collectively reach millions of viewers. Yet given the viral nature of TikTok and its enormous popularity among its over 175 million U.S. users, the campaign undoubtedly has a huge potential to reach new and first-time voters among it’s large user base.."
"So far, the Tok the Vote coalition has convened more than 300 creators from across the country with a combined audience of over 20 million viewers, according to Colton Hess, 25-year-old founder of Tok the Vote... TikTok is more of a platform, voting is a movement."
"Biden’s team needs 'to do a better job of reaching these voters where they are and connect the most progressive parts of the campaign’s platform to” Generation Z, said Colton Hess, the founder of Tok the Vote, a TikTok creator-led coalition to mobilize younger voters. “Because they don’t have a clear picture of Biden and who he is and what he stands for … they were young during the Obama presidency and don’t know a lot about him, but they’re missing a lot of pieces of the puzzle about how Biden does have one of the most progressive platforms of all time.'"
“'I think there is no better way to get Gen Z to the polls than to ban TikTok,' said Colton Hess, who founded the TikTok account ToktheVote to encourage young people to vote. 'I think that could really mobilize young people because it is a cultural sensation.'”
"'We've never been in a moment like this and you know our young generation certainly hasn't and there's no return to normal from something like this. So I think people are starting to see... we're going to decide what the new normal looks like,' said Hess."
