The numbers are dismaying. According to a new US Census report, only 20% of eligible 18-29-year-olds voted in 2014. It was the lowest turnout in 40 years, below even 2010's doleful 24%. Mid-term youth turnout is always low. But these numbers suggest a generation profoundly disconnected from the electoral choices that will help shape their world.
Yet the decline need not be inevitable. If young women and men are actively engaged by their peers, or by communities and institutions that touch their lives, they respond. The Campus Election Engagement Project, a national nonpartisan effort that I founded in 2008, helps America's colleges and universities use their resources and networks to engage America's 20 million students in elections. We help schools take responsibility for getting their students to register, volunteer in campaigns, educate themselves on candidates and issues, navigate daunting new voter laws, and turn out at the polls. Coaching schools through creative and effective approaches drawn from campuses nationwide, we help administrators and faculty collaborate with each other and with student leaders to make electoral engagement a visible campus priority.
Our results suggest this kind of direct engagement matters profoundly. In 2014, we worked with 280 colleges and universities in 21 states, with a total enrollment of 3.2 million voting-eligible students. Based on precinct comparisons with 2010, when we weren't running the project, we increased student turnout 17% at participating campuses, compared to the significant decline in general youth voting. Many of our precincts were so scrambled by redistricting as to prevent valid comparisons, and we couldn't include the commuter schools that were some of our strongest participants. But we were still able to measure a diverse representative sample. Although our states tended to have closer races with consequent higher participation, our students still faced the same daunting new election laws, the same climate of political cynicism, and the same personal doubts as to whether their votes really mattered.
So how do we get students to the polls despite all the barriers? We ask the schools to approach student electoral participation systematically, addressing both practical and perceptual obstacles. Building on classic organizing theory, we reach out through academic networks that the schools already know and trust, taking advantage of existing social networks, so we aren't coming in as outsiders, and building on existing social capital. We help stakeholders collaborate across entrenched academic silos, because it takes a team to act effectively and effective teams reach out beyond familiar boundaries. For instance, we help Orientation Directors register students to vote at first-year orientation, IT staffers help Presidents and Deans email election-related emails and texts, and student leaders and faculty team up to register students in classrooms. We help schools display posters and banners to create pervasive visibility, and organize Parades to the Polls (sometimes led by student veterans) to make voting a community celebration. We've even helped organize football players to hold up their registration cards at half time, while the stadium Jumbotron displays a registration link for the audience.