Well after this November elections.

Lackluster voter turnout a group of progressive organizations in the state are launching a massive voter engagement project, bringing together faith, labor and community leaders in an effort to reach about a million working class voters in new Jersey, with a focus on black, Hispanic, Asian and youth voting groups, which they see as underrepresented but with immense political power.

Raven Santana reports.

The voter turnout in 2024, in new Jersey was less than 2020 and 2016.

The 2024 presidential election was billed by candidates, campaigns and analyst as a generational fight for democracy.

But despite the year's long buildup, 7% fewer new Jersey voters cast a vote.

This year compared to the 2020 presidential election.

There is a national dialog around why did folks stay home?

It's a drop in participation that make the road.

New Jersey Deputy Director Nadia Morsy doesn't want to become an election norm, which is why she and more than 15 organizations across the state are throwing their support behind the Million Voters project, which launched last week.

The groups has ever done individually in the state of New Jersey, so we are incredibly excited.

This is a nonpartisan effort, to increase, I take to strengthen our democracy, to improve, improve, and increase voter turnout, especially amongst high opportunity voters.

That includes voters of color, young people, like marginalized groups.

Morsi says the majority of the deep canvasing is done through door knocks and phone calls.

The goal is to reach 1 million voters by November 2025.

She says the movement is critical, especially among demographic groups that are too often left out of the political process and who don't feel their voices are heard in Trenton.

Really excited and believe deeply that Million Voter project and the work of doing deep canvasing, knocking on people's doors not just during the election, but, all year round and talking to voters, you know, on the doors and having them come to events and come to actions all throughout the year is going to help push against this narrative that the political process and the civic process is not for people of color and not for marginalized people.

Assad, a man, is the senior community organizer for new Jersey Institute for Social Justice, one of the groups participating in the Million Voters Project.

Mann says increasing participation at the ballot box will make our democracy stronger and more inclusive.

We want to fight some of the disengagement and just cynicism around how politics is done, how power works in the state.

You know, a lot of people feel that their vote doesn't matter, that their voice doesn't matter.

And, you know, and that's been something that's been a problem for a long time.

So I think for us, we definitely want to make sure that communities of color realize that they have power.

The launch comes as the county line in the state has been abolished, and with less than a year until a gubernatorial election.

We've kind of hovered around, you know, the 40% line or so when it comes to voting in gubernatorial.

So this is something I'm sure that many of these groups out there, like the Million Voters Project, want to see increase.

Ashley Koning, director of the Rutgers Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling, says an unspoken challenge that we could see amongst voters here in new Jersey is voter fatigue.

We're going to be dealing with a national, news cycle that's going to be 24 over seven, of course, on the Trump administration.

And who knows what that may bring in terms of the news that's going to come out in several months and what policies and initiatives happen.

So voters are going to be tired to try to get through that, and to understand that voters probably won't tune in to the gubernatorial until September of next year.

That's that's a lot to deal with.

Even when we have an open seat in primaries coming up in June, it's a lot to try to get through that apathy and those negative views that voters have on the outlook of the state in general and on the quality of life right now and their personal well-being, Morsi says during the canvasing process, data will be collected and then released publicly.

That information will then be discussed during town halls and forums in different communities, she says.

The first town hall meeting could come as soon as February.

For NJ Spotlight News, I'm Raven Santana.