Here’s What’s Up: New Campus Vote Project x HIT Strategies Survey, Voter Registration by the #s and Is It ⚠️Time for Politicians to BeReal ⚠️?
Here’s What’s Up: New Campus Vote Project x HIT Strategies Survey, Voter Registration by the #s and Is It ⚠️Time for Politicians to BeReal ⚠️?
Students are disillusioned, but they’re still motivated to vote, new Campus Vote Project x HIT Strategies survey finds
Youth voter turnout surged in the 2018 midterm elections. But a lot (COVID-19, extreme weather, a racial reckoning, school shootings, the rollback of abortion rights, and a swath of new election laws that may complicate the voting process for students) has happened since.
Anyone looking to turn out young voters in 2022 is probably thinking about the impact of these events on students' lives. Do students believe their votes matter? Do they view electoral politics as an effective tool for change?
To learn more, Campus Vote Project, an initiative run by the Fair Elections Center aimed at increasing access to student voting, partnered with HIT Strategies, a messaging and strategy firm that specializes in researching minority communities, especially young Americans, communities of color and the LGBTQ+ community, to conduct a survey of college students on “vote motivation and messaging.”
TLDR
Students are disillusioned and many are skeptical that voting is the answer to the problems they face; but they still feel motivated to vote, the survey found.
Just 52% of students said they believe their vote has the power to make change on the issues important to them, while 30% said they believe their vote has little to no power to make change, according to the report.
Yet, the survey found that 70% of students are motivated to vote in the 2022 midterm elections. And while students are overall vexed by the current state of affairs, more students say they are angry and motivated (39%) than angry and unmotivated (8%).
Asked to list barriers preventing them from voting, more students said a “belief that voting doesn’t change anything” (41%) than a “lack of information on voting process” (26%), “lack of time to spend waiting in line or filling out mail-in ballot” (21%), or “inconvenience of poll location and lack of transportation” (20%).
Hold up…
But that’s not to say that students couldn’t benefit from more on campus voting options and clearer information about how and where to vote. Nearly half of students (49%) said on campus ballot drop-off boxes or voting sites would be the most beneficial campus resource to promote student voting.
Bucking the misconception that young voters care more about social issues than economic issues, the survey found that students view economic and social issues to be pretty much equal, with 44% of students listing the “cost of living/inflation” higher than “abortion access” (43%) and “gun violence prevention” (43%) as the issues that matter to them most.
So, what’s up?
To get a better sense of the numbers reflected in the survey, I spoke with student organizers from Campus Vote Project and MOVE Texas, a nonpartisan youth voter engagement and civic education organization.
Josh Tenorio and Rachel Thompson, both seniors at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas and organizers with Campus Vote Project, said it’s impossible to decouple social and economic issues and highlighted the potential impact of recent events like the 2021 Texas freeze and Texas’ abortion ban on students’ socioeconomic situation.
“The university increased our tuition. We felt that was wrong because of some of the damages from the frost. Or with abortion, a lot of students are concerned with how much they would have to pay if they went out of state for an abortion or if they would still have access to cheap Plan B on campus or if that would be taken away too,” Tenorio said.
“I think it’s kind of oblivious to say that our identities, our social identities that we identify with, has something totally different to do with our socioeconomic status, especially since we have to pay for school, we have to pay for rent,” Thompson said.
Thompson and Tenorio said students are motivated to vote when they learn about the on campus Election Day voting center. They also described students’ recent excitement when Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke visited Austin.
“Beto came to Austin, and a lot of students were really excited to talk to him. Thinking that Beto, or any candidate really, cares about students’ opinions enough to come out and speak to them has improved the idea that their voice does matter,” Thompson said.
When it comes to the logistics around voting, Kristina Samuel, a senior at Texas A&M and the president of the university’s chapter of MOVE TEXAS, fought tooth and nail this summer and early fall to restore an early voting location in the center of Texas A&M’s campus. Brazos County commissioners had voted in July to remove the early voting location from the school’s Memorial Student Center.
Samuel said the preexisting on campus early voting location was “convenient” for students, cut down lines, and shortened wait times. Without it, she fears the impact could be “disastrous” and reduce the number of students who are able to vote.
“In an election as big as this, it’s really frustrating,” Samuel said.
Samuel detailed her election-day voting experience from the 2020 primaries.
“I left enough time. That line spanned around the building, and I waited three hours in line and barely made it to my next class. Everyone saw the line and was like, ‘Hell no,’” she said.
Despite pushback from students like Samuel who testified to the Brazos County Commissioners Court in favor of the on campus early voting center, the site will note be restored. But Samuel said the students' activism demonstrates their overall energy and motivation to vote in the midterm elections.
“These incoming freshmen, there’s something different about them. They’re so energized by this information, they’re so ready to commit action,” Samuel said. “I think part of that was them being in high school when COVID hit, and then coming to college now and feeling like they can make a change.”
For his part, Chauncy Whaley, a 37-year-old communications scholar and Campus Vote Project organizer at Edward Waters University, Florida’s oldest HBCU, has been advocating for the restoration of an early voting site on campus, too.
Whaley described the lack of an early voting location as “an issue at our campus that goes beyond just what’s on the ballot.”
“If you send your child or student to an HBCU or any campus, you are instilling in them the opportunity and right to be a citizen and leader,” Whaley said. “Eliminating an early voting site is a hindrance to them and their productivity as citizens and their right to vote.”
More details
Off the bat, the survey found that Black students, first-year students, and community college students are less motivated to vote than their counterparts. The survey polled students on community college, public state university, and private college campuses. It reached students pursuing associate and bachelor’s degrees. Campus Vote Project currently works with over 280 colleges and universities, across 41 states, reaching a network of over 3.4 million students.
This week in youth voter land 🗳🌎
National Voter Registration Day by the #s
Roughly 400,000 people registered to vote on National Voter Registration Day, according to an estimate from the group that runs the civic holiday (which was held on September 20).
Asked how the organization gathers info about the number of new voter registrants, Debi Lombardi, program director of NVRD said: “We work with the National Association of State Election Directors (NASED) and the states directly to learn how many people registered for the first time or updated their registration using online voter registration, major non-governmental voter registration platforms, and reports of voter registration collected from our over 4,000 partners (many of whom were registering people to vote on the ground) across the country.”
Lombardi emphasized that about a quarter of NVRD’s partners are college and university groups.
“Activations like Campus Takeover coordinated by Students Learn Students Vote and the Alliance for Youth Organizing and partners like the Civics Center who hosts High School Voter Registration Week around the holiday help us reach the youngest and newest voters,” she said.
For its part, When We All Vote, the voter registration and engagement organization founded by former First Lady Michelle Obama and a premier partner of National Voter Registration Day, said more than 22,000 people registered or checked their voter registration status during National Voter Registration Week and National Black Voter Day with When We All Vote.
Throughout National Voter Registration Week, volunteers with When We All Vote helped lead more than 150 voter registration events in 30 states, the organization said, including events at Edward Waters University in Florida, Compton High School in California, and Frederick Community College in Maryland.
‘Power on the field and power at the polls’: NextGen America teams up with 50 college athletes to promote info about voting
For the first time, NextGen America is teaming up with 50 college athletes as part of its influencer program. The athlete ambassador program encourages college athletes to post election and voting information on their social media channels. So far, athletes including Michigan State University offensive linemen Zak Zinter, University of New Hampshire gymnast Kenadi Brown, North Carolina State University women’s basketball guard Diamond Johnson, and Villanova University basketball forward Trey Patterson have spread the message on their channels. “Drafted…. to be playing on democracy’s court. I’m partnering with @nextgenamerica to wake up the youth vote,” Patterson said in an Instagram post. The decision to team up with college athletes was made possible by the “name, image and likeness policy” adopted by the NCAA in 2021, and according to NextGen, is only the second political NIL partnership, after University of Tennessee Martin’s football quarterback Dresser Winn announced his support of a local candidate for district attorney general.
Question of the week: Is it ⚠️Time for politicians to BeReal ⚠️?
BeReal – the app that gives users two minutes a day to take an unfiltered photo using their front and back cameras – is all the rage with Gen Z.
Every day at a random time, users are told it’s “⚠️Time to BeReal ⚠️” and prompted to post within 120 seconds. The peer-to-peer French app has carved a niche as the anti-social media social media platform – an ironic take on the vanity and disingenuity of social media promoted by filters and curated feeds.
While you can share your BeReal on the platform’s discover page, it’s not designed for public profiles. In fact, the platform’s App store page reads, “BeReal won't make you famous. If you want to become an influencer you can stay on TikTok and Instagram.”
But, given that just about every other app populated by Gen Z has become a place for politics, it begs the question – could BeReal get political?
While it would be easy for users to post photos with political messages, showing themselves voting or taking civic action, it's harder for politicians, candidates or activists to curate profiles of themselves on the app – unless they accept friend requests from constituents, supporters, and haters.
But there have been a few examples of political BeReals.
Last month, Nevada Democrats’ Nevada Democratic Victory Twitter account tweeted, “Let’s ⚠️BE REAL!⚠️ There’s never been a better time to get involved to elect Democrats in Nevada!” with a screenshot of a BeReal post.
Montana’s Democratic Sen. Jon Tester in August tweeted, “⚠️Time to BeReal. ⚠️” with a selfie in which he appeared to fix a truck engine, though I’ve yet to successfully find him on the app.
And a couple of weeks ago, Georgia’s Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff posted a BeReal style photo with Interior Secretary Deb Haaland on Instagram, captioned, “Let me BeReal: I’ll keep working relentlessly to defend the Okefenokee Wildlife Refuge.”
The comment section popped off with questions like, “JON WHY ARENT WE FRIENDS ON BEREAL?????,” “this is so slay of you jon,” and “when he relates to the gen z’sss.”
Ossoff, for his part, was one of the first politicians on TikTok.
Youth Vote in the News 🗞
The Surge That Could Save Democrats, Nia Prater for New York Magazine’s Intelligencer, Oct 1
How Colorado’s Youth Vote Will Shape Midterm Elections, Ellie Sullum for 303 Magazine, Sept 29
Young voters enthusiastic about casting ballots in November: survey, Olafimihan Oshin for The Hill, Sept 28
Reclaim Your Vote: When We All Vote Makes Appeal to Youth Voters, Brandi Kellam for BET, Sept 23
Opinion: Don’t take young people for granted in November, Alliance for Youth Action’s Executive Director Dakota Hall and President and CEO of the Voter Participation Center Tom Lopach for Fulcrum, Sept 23
Health care, mass shootings top Gen Z priorities for 2022 midterms, Gianna Melillo for The Hill, Sept 22
Election officials trying to recruit younger poll workers in Kentucky, Divya Karthikeyan for WFPL, Sept 22
These young Kansas Citians say politicians don’t really care about them. They still plan to vote, by Laura Ziegler for KCUR, Sept 22
I saw no mention of third parties in this or any article. People of all ages want to know about alternatives to the duopoly. And no one is telling them how simple it is to vote straight ticket yet vote for a third party candidate by filling in the box next to their name. Every time the Democrats dumped Bernie, Green Party membership swelled. Did you know that the Green Party of North Carolina got enough petition signatures for approval by the state elections board to get back on the ballot BUT a committee of Democrats bumped them off. They had to spend time and money to sue and are now back on the ballot for Matthew Hoh's Senate campaign. https://action.matthewhohforsenate.org/