Bringing Game Day Energy To Election Season On College Campuses

Tonia Attie is a first-year student at the University of Mary Washington

Dr. David Stahlman is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the University of Mary Washington

Abigail Thomas is a second-year student at the Community College of Philadelphia

Michelle Lopez is Director of the Institute for Community Engagement and Civic Leadership at Community College of Philadelphia

What would election season look like for college students if institutions of higher learning put their full weight behind mobilizing student voter participation?

College campuses are among the few remaining places where an entire community can mobilize around a common event. Whether it’s Game Day or Move-in Day or Class Registration Day, institutions of all types know how to activate their student bodies in ways that aren’t just visible, but ubiquitous.

Imagine if they did that for election season. Election information could be displayed prominently in every classroom, dorm room, and dining hall. Information could be posted in public spaces, telling students how to register to vote and how to cast a ballot. On-campus events could be organized solely for the purpose of drumming up enthusiasm for democratic participation. Class schedules could be altered to accommodate student voters.

Campuses have the expertise to realize these ideals. Anyone who has attended a university with a major football or basketball program has seen mobilizations like this before. They devote countless time and resources to let their students know they’re part of this major event, that they’re welcomed, and even expected, to participate. The event becomes a tradition, a reflection of campus culture, around which students create lasting memories of their own. Even the surrounding town gets involved.

But reaching that level of scale and ubiquity in support of democratic participation is rare. To be sure, many colleges and universities have made significant progress in recent years. More than 950 campuses now participate in the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge to increase nonpartisan college student voter participation. Yet hurdles remain. In 2016, nearly half of young people (ages 18-29) didn’t vote due to a conflict or lack of time on Election Day. The majority of student respondents in a recent survey by Campus Vote Project indicated that they plan to vote on Election Day. Relatedly, the results of this survey suggest that avoiding Election Day assignments is one of the top steps professors can take to improve voting accessibility.

Campuses can do so much more to make the voting experience universal. Fewer than 3% of colleges and universities observe some form of class cancellation on Election Day, and even fewer institutions organize a day of engagement in lieu of classes.

At the Community College of Philadelphia (CCP) and University of Mary Washington (UMW), we’re trying to change that. Though our campuses and their cultures are in some ways dissimilar, we believe in a shared vision for students' civic engagement. CCP is a large, public community college in one of America’s major cities. UMW, also public, is a medium-sized liberal arts institution in suburban, historic Fredericksburg, VA. Together we aim to make election season a prominent touchstone for our communities, culminating in active participation (i.e., voting and volunteering) on Election Day.

Our efforts at CCP underscore that we’re the city’s college, engaging with our students’ identity as Philadelphians as much as members of CCP’s community. We incorporate members of prominent local institutions, from state representatives to the Philadelphia 76ers drumline, to bring our vast student body together. In the run-up to Election Day we champion poll worker recruitment, inviting students to help meet our city’s great need for poll workers. On Election Day, we partner with local organizations to offer volunteer opportunities to our students ranging from mural painting, driving people to the polls, and canvassing South Philly to get out the vote. Our goal is to create positive civic experiences for our students to increase their investment in our democracy. Their participation, in turn, brings us closer to a stronger, more inclusive democracy.

At Mary Washington, we look to capitalize on our strengths as a tight-knit campus community with strong reach among our student body’s common touch points. Like CCP, we have robust voter registration, education and early voting campaigns leading up to Election Day, hosted with our partners at Every Vote Counts and Civic Influencers. With the majority of classes canceled, Election Day itself is an opportunity for students to engage on campus and in the surrounding community. This year’s plans include a tree-planting event, trash cleanup, a keynote address from a political science professor, a moderated roundtable with different student group members, and an election night watch party. We create space for democracy by ensuring academic obligations don’t compete with a student’s civic duty.

Our goal is to make democratic participation a reality in the contexts that our students find themselves in. While achieving this goal necessarily takes on many forms based on different schools, maintaining this north star helps any institution work toward a day and season in which voting isn’t merely an option for its students, but an indelible presence on campus. Our approach diverges from the general status quo in which people must go out of their way to incorporate voting into their lives—if they can manage to. This work is dynamic: our programming doesn’t yet reach every student at our institutions, and needs change over time. Regardless, we’re committed to the ongoing process of graduating engaged citizens.

Colleges of all kinds can join us and take advantage of their unique position to shape the lives of young voters. Like any habit, the earlier someone becomes a regular voter, the more likely they are to maintain that behavior for the rest of their lives (Holbein & Hillygus, 2020). Students who attend schools with major sports programs generally stay fans of those schools’ teams long after they graduate. It’s a source of pride that makes up a part of their identity. Students who attend schools that put similar thought and energy into promoting voter participation may in turn become lifelong voters who take pride in that action and consider it a part of their identity as well. Beyond that, prioritizing democratic participation by enabling and celebrating it sends a message to students that their vote matters. At a time when 71% of voters believe our democracy is at risk, we need reasons to be excited about the next chapter in the American experiment, about what’s possible. And higher education has a critical, hopeful role to play in that journey. Together, we can graduate lifelong fans of American democracy—our collective home team.

More than 955 colleges and universities currently participate in the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge. Learn more about ALL IN and donate to advance our work here.