This story was written by Teen Vogue's 2024 Student Correspondents, a team of college students and recent graduates covering the election cycle from key battleground states.
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College students typically face a lot of barriers when voting. In the 2024 election cycle, Republican lawmakers and organizations have pushed policies that would tamp down the youth vote, such as limiting what forms of ID people can use to cast a ballot.
A federal judge in Idaho recently upheld laws passed by the Republican-controlled legislature that prohibit students from using a university ID for voter registration and in-person voting. In North Carolina, a battleground state, the Republican National Committee and the state's Republican Party have filed a lawsuit against the state's Board of Elections, arguing that University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill students and employees should not be allowed to use digital forms of university IDs when voting. Identification should be a “physical, tangible item that can be held in a person’s hands and inspected,” the challenge asserts, also claiming that digital IDs could “allow hundreds or thousands of ineligible voters to vote in the upcoming…election and beyond.”
Organizations like Voter Friendly Campus (VFC) are working to help college students understand the policies and laws in play so they can have the freedom to vote. VFC was started in 2016 as a joint effort between the Fair Elections Center’s Campus Vote Project and the National Association of Student Personnel and Administrators. The goal of the organization is to boost student-voter engagement and make campuses “voter friendly” by providing resources and support. Some campuses, like Arizona State University, have multiple in-person voting centers, and most, like the University of Nevada, Reno (UNR), will have centralized mailing centers that make it easier to receive and send out mail-in ballots.
Campus Vote Project has staff who serve as state coordinators where “the college vote can be very influential, [such as in] Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Florida, and more.” Those staff members work with college campuses to create partnerships and relationships. In states where these staffers aren’t present, college campuses who are aware of Voter Friendly Campus can reach out to submit a statement of interest and the partnership starts from there. In 2016, only 83 campuses had earned the “voter friendly” label; that number has since grown to 262.
“The biggest issues that come up are related to accessibility and a general sort of understanding,” says Andrea Zayas Conner, a national Voter Friendly Campus intern and student at the University of California, Los Angeles. “People know ‘I can vote on my campus, but I don’t know how’ and ‘I go to school, but it’s not my home county.’”
Conner believes it’s “super-duper helpful” to get students this information. At UCLA, she says, VFC works with a nonpartisan voting coalition connected to the school's student government; other schools work with additional campus organizations like residential life and Greek life to help get the word out, leaning heavily on social media to do so.
“Trying to work through orgs within the school is a really good way to get info,” Conner explains. “People pay more attention to that than, you know, an announcement from the state itself.”
While a lot of this work is student-led, VFC reports, some college administrators also go out of their way to make voting and civic participation an easy, engaging process. For instance, Community College of Philadelphia president Donald Generals declared Election Day to be a “day of service.” There will not be classes that day; instead, students are encouraged to “not just vote but to be poll workers or volunteers,” says National Voter Friendly Campus director Chuck Black.
Black says the Community College of Philadelphia is a great success: “I would now argue that they have grown to be one of the best voting programs in the entire country,” he adds.
VFC helps pay student workers through its Democracy Fellow program, which hires students to run voter education efforts, voter registration, and tabling for events. Students in Nevada are also pushing for UNR to give them the day off on Election Day. A 2023 resolution, authored by UNR student senator Leaf Acklin, states, “Students encounter obstacles in casting their votes due to time constraints imposed by classes, work, homework, and personal commitments.” Canceling classes, according to the resolution, would “alleviate these challenges, as increased volunteerism on Election Day would lead to reduced poll wait times, making voting more accessible for the university community.”
During UNR's annual student elections this spring, about 91% of students voted yes to the proposal. According to the university’s student newspaper, however, they won’t be getting the day off for November's upcoming election because of all the steps involved in getting the measure approved by the Nevada System of Higher Education’s Board of Regents.
Before the matter even gets to the board, a brief needs to be written and sent to UNR’s legal team. After it has been reviewed, it will go to the vice president of student services, and then it gets sent to the president of UNR, Brian Sandoval. And if Sandoval approves it, it still doesn’t go to the Board of Regents — it will go to the board's legal team to decide if the regents even have the power to cancel classes on Election Day.
Says Black, there is a national movement to give students Election Day off, but some administrators have resisted. “I think there's admins who think, Oh, it shouldn't take that long for a student to vote,” Black explains. “That's not always the case. We saw in the [2022] midterms there were students at campuses [like] Michigan State, the University of Michigan, who were waiting hours to cast a vote.”
Giving students the opportunity to vote early is another argument administrators use to refrain from giving students the day off, Black notes. “I think it is a student's right to be able to vote whenever they want," he asserts. "It is not our job to say you can only vote on November 5.”
According to Black, some campuses have opted for compromises, such as agreeing not to take attendance or hold any exams on Election Day. But he hopes Election Day can eventually become a “joyful celebration” to honor how important it is. (In Australia, for example, voting is mandatory, held on Saturdays, and neighborhoods compete to have the best barbecue.)
Anna Foster, a national Voter Friendly Campus intern and student at Butler University, says her priority is also helping students make informed decisions. “Voter registration and voter turnout are especially important goals as we approach the election,” she says, “but I also think voter education and just helping all students [is too], regardless of the decision they make.”
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