Local Voting as a Foundation for Civic Engagement
Raising the Stakes of Voter Registration on Campus
One year ago today, January 6, 2021 I spent the morning hours celebrating the victory of Jon Ossoff in his win for his Georgia Senate seat. I had come off several months as a staff member on the Jon Ossoff campaign. I served as a community organizer for their Out of State Team, my job was to organize and mobilize volunteers for various efforts as well as train them in various efforts including something called friendbanking. Friendbanking is a technique used where individuals directly contact via phone, text, email or social media voters in their network encouraging them to not only vote, but having a plan to vote in the upcoming election.
I found my way to political organizing when I was hired by the Ossoff campaign based on my work as a volunteer for several other presidential and senatorial campaigns during the 2020 cycle. The pandemic had been a bizarre set of twists and turns for me professionally. I was focusing my higher education life on completing my dissertation, but my usual work as a consultant was slow, due to the realities of remote learning and hybrid campuses. Having the opportunity to dive into political work was interesting to me, and allowed for me to use my transferable skills to help democracy.
I was the oldest staff member on the Out of State team (and possibly the entire campaign). My supervisor was young enough that I could have given birth to him. During my time on #TeamOssoffOOS I learned so much about politics, political organizing and policy. I also got to know my teammates and what motivated them to become politically involved. For some, it was a parent’s health and the lack of adequate healthcare, for others it was their race or sexual identity and how they had experienced direct attacks to their personal safety or to the safety of their family, and for others, it was about seeking to live in a country where political discourse was about what we are for, rather than what we were against.
Ultimately, they all had something in common, democracy, and a love of it. Being a Student Affairs professional to my core I had to know, did college do it for you? Was campus activism something that propelled you? Overwhelmingly the answer was, ‘no’. These coworkers had become engaged in politics and activism through their own experiences, not through campus. Yes, they participated in some political activities on campus, but to a person they couldn’t remember a time where the college they attended put on a voter registration drive, or encouraged voting. Any encouragement came from friends and family, or from their own individual drive to be more engaged politically.
This saddened me as I recalled Constitution Day activities where we attempted to educate students about the constitution and our democracy. There were so many voter registration drives where we partnered with the local league of women voters to register students. I remembered when MTV launched their “Rock the Vote” efforts, and my campus used their MTV branded resources to get students registered. In 2008, when Barack Obama was elected, students on my little campus turned out in droves at the local polling location. So many students that the city election volunteers commented how nice it was to see them waiting in line. But then came the ‘off year’ elections, when the number of students voting was minute in comparison. Obama was a big deal, but city council? Not so much. Even though the city
council had more of an impact on their lives on campus. City council had influence in city services, traffic lights at the dangerous intersection directly off campus and could rally to the transportation authority to keep bus routes open. But students didn’t show up in those elections. Imagine if they did?
As I recall my decades of time working with students, I knew of a handful of individuals who made a move to politics and was incredibly proud when I saw their accomplishments through Facebook and Linked In posts. We don’t know exactly who is a regular and engaged voter, while not everyone has the luxury of time to dedicate to volunteering for a candidate or cause, at minimum, should we be hoping that our students graduate seeking to vote in each and every election? When they walk into a ballot booth or into a voting location that they know WHAT and WHO they are voting for, and more importantly, WHY?
A simple voter registration drive doesn’t achieve this outcome. Rather, we are lucky if the students actually vote every four years for president. In 2020 just under 67% of the eligible population voted - and this was a HIGH turnout. Campuses grapple with being perceived as political or partisan. But the argument exists, by not providing students with the tools they need to vote in an informed and engaged way, are we simply creating a population of disengaged non-voters? Or worse?
By noon on this same day in 2021, after hopping on celebratory Zoom calls with the entire Ossoff team and my own smaller team, the insurrection at the Capitol had begun. Reporting subsequent to January 6th has shown that a majority of Republicans believe that the election was stolen. Large percentages of voters think that the divide is too wide to repair. Based on my experience working as a political organizer I don’t adhere to these beliefs of despair, because I saw the energy and the passion first hand. And, as a student affairs professional I know that we have the capacity to educate our students to take pride in their identity to do positive things and engage for the greater good.
The more I reflect on my experience and my former Ossoff coworkers I believe that we can lay the foundation for a better tomorrow, if we educate our students about the role they can play in actually making it happen, with a simple and informed vote. And local elections may very well be where we can actually plant a seed of lifelong voting. Because don’t we want to live in a world where we are able to discuss what we are actually for, rather than what we are against?
Special Episode: January 10th 12 Noon
Office Hours: With Dr. De Veau
You spoke, I listened! With the Omicron variant hitting the world hard just in time for the start of the spring semester, AND layer in the new CDC guidelines, many Student Affairs and Higher Education Pros are looking for some level-headed medical expertise. Dr. Megan Ranney from Brown University will be my guest at a special episode, this Monday, January 10th at 12 noon exclusively on the Fireside Chat app. Come and join us live and BRING YOUR QUESTIONS. Dr. Ranney is incredibly engaging and understands the nuances of Covid on campus.
