Last fall, when Breanna Brown wanted to talk to her fellow students about voting, the then-freshman at Wayne State University would walk into a lecture hall and extol the virtues of civic participation before class started.
“It’s a lot more work,” Brown said of pandemic-era organizing. “It’s harder to have those conversations,” when you’re connecting digitally, “and really get to the meat of the subject with them, you just have to kind of put it out there and hope for the best.” Young people are a coveted demographic Young people are a coveted demographic among candidates, said Hahrie Han, a political science professor at Johns Hopkins University. For one, they account for a sizable portion of the electorate — one in 10 eligible voters this election season is from Generation Z, according to the Pew Research Center. In addition, habits that start when voters are young have the potential to set a precedent for the rest of their voting life, she said.
Students “are able to attend a national online conversation much more readily,” Britt said. Some of the issues the group is emphasizing as part of their get out the vote efforts include the Supreme Court nomination of Amy Coney Barret and the economy. “It’s a big deal. They need to have a strong economy to walk into,” Britt said of college students.
Initially, the group had planned to help colleges integrate one-on-one conversations about voting into typical touch points on campus, like registering for classes and orientation, said Clarissa Unger, the organization’s director. But once colleges began sending students home in the spring, the coalition, which was working with colleges on primary campaigns, had to switch gears, Unger said.
And because college life is so different from a typical year — even for students who are on campus — much of the social incentives around voting are gone. When in-person campus activities were robust, students would “go over to the voting locations with the a capella group,” or other student organizations, “they can’t do that right now,” said Nancy Thomas, the director of the Institute for Democracy and Higher Education at Tufts University.
Though the pandemic has increased the challenges students might face voting, the last several months have also brought into stark relief many of the issues important to young people, like economic and racial equality. That dynamic could fuel students’ enthusiasm for voting this year. More than 60% of students in a recent College Reaction/Axios poll said they would “confront or otherwise express disappointment” towards someone they know who chose not to vote if they couldn’t.
Evergreen....one day turnout numbers will match
Don't know if dem are still pulling this trick but I remember when I was in college they would want you to vote in the college town then go home and vote again in your home town.