{"id":732,"date":"2019-11-05T12:00:38","date_gmt":"2019-11-05T12:00:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/raisethevote\/?p=732"},"modified":"2019-11-07T21:59:05","modified_gmt":"2019-11-07T21:59:05","slug":"empowering-college-students-to-register-vote-and-engage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/raisethevote\/2019\/11\/05\/empowering-college-students-to-register-vote-and-engage\/","title":{"rendered":"Empowering College Students to Register, Vote, and Engage"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bobbi Gentry, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Bridgewater College, is a guest contributor for the RAISE the Vote Campaign<\/a>. The views expressed in the posts and articles featured in the RAISE the Vote campaign are those of the authors and contributors alone and do not represent the views of APSA.<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/span>Empowering College Students to Register, Vote, and Engage<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

by Bobbi Gentry<\/strong>, Assistant Professor, Bridgewater College<\/p>\n

In order to empower young people to have a voice in politics we need to encourage them to find their voice and their identity.<\/strong>\u00a0 The literature on youth voting often focuses on why young people do not vote [1]<\/a>, however what is more revealing is focusing on why young people do participate.\u00a0 The research in political science has a few explanations for what encourages young people to participate: peer to peer conversations [2]<\/a>, access to transportation to the polls, and placing polling stations on college campuses. Additionally, young people are more likely to vote when they know who they are. Political identity matters.<\/p>\n

Young people go through stages of identity development to explore, question, define and redefine who they are politically.\u00a0 There are a variety of practices that higher education institutions, faculty, and students can engage in to encourage college student voting.<\/p>\n

1. Provide Role Models as Examples of different Identities<\/h3>\n

Colleges should host events that introduce people who identify with different groups.\u00a0 Political parties should not be the limit here.\u00a0 There are a variety of groups on college campuses such as Dialog Clubs, Issue Oriented clubs, in addition to a wide spectrum of ideology and party affiliations.\u00a0 Host an event where students can interact with identity role models.\u00a0 For example, Student Government could host an event about current political issues facing college students and present different perspectives.\u00a0 Providing role models allows young people to see what identities are available and to be inspired to develop their own identities.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

2. Explore important issues to young people<\/h3>\n

In politics, we often talk about issues important to women, minorities, and special interest groups, but rarely do we address issues that are specifically important to young people.\u00a0 Host a forum of important issues to young people like Loan Forgiveness Programs, Affordable Housing, a Living Wage, and International Crises, just to name a few.\u00a0 Encouraging young people to explore the problems that matter to them allows young people to consider what they think and discuss with others why those issues matter.\u00a0 Exploring issues allows young people to identify what they care about and what they are willing to participate to influence political outcomes.<\/p>\n

\n

“Young people are more likely to participate when they know who they are politically<\/strong>.”<\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n

3. Collaborate across campus and with the community<\/h3>\n

We can work with student groups to encourage voter registration drives, information sessions, and host events.\u00a0 Student government, student dialog groups, and college political party groups are just some of the groups that can work together to create a collaborative voter registration campaign and voting campaign.\u00a0 Community organizations such as League of Women Voters<\/a>, local parties, and national voter campaigns are often happy to work with young people to register students and encourage participation.\u00a0 Remember that you are not alone; collaborate to spread enthusiasm and awareness.<\/p>\n

4. Know the state and local rules for registering and voting<\/h3>\n

Faculty, staff and student leaders should review what the most recent law and Secretary of State\u2019s decision is on college student voting.\u00a0 Knowing the law is crucial to explaining to students where they are able to vote.\u00a0 The distinction between residence and permanent residence is opaque for college students.\u00a0 Make clearer distinctions with their address and their parents\u2019 address.\u00a0 Students have the ability to choose where to vote.\u00a0 But if the state or locality uses their decision to limit college student voting, encourage students to vote where they are able to.<\/p>\n

5. Fight when fighting is necessary<\/h3>\n

Sometimes local registrars are unwilling to register college students, regardless of college student rights.\u00a0 Every election year young people are denied the right to vote.\u00a0 The legal process to appeal the decision to deny voting rights can be long and arduous.\u00a0 But there are other ways to appeal decisions.\u00a0 Work with the media to expand the scope of the conflict, meaning include media and inform media of the rights of college students to vote.\u00a0 One key element to consider is that the Census counts college students in their college community. [3]<\/a>\u00a0 This means that representation at the federal and state level and funding from the federal and state government is appropriated with college students at their college addresses.\u00a0 Getting the benefits of counting college students in their college community without letting them vote in their college community is voter suppression, and should be fought.<\/p>\n

Youth voting is essential to democracy.\u00a0<\/strong> Young people are more likely to participate when they know who they are politically. [4]<\/a>\u00a0 Finding ways to explore identity, meet role models, and ask questions about what matters to young people encourages the discovery of identity.\u00a0 Barriers to participation, especially by state and local registrars, can discourage voting and participating in politics for years to come.\u00a0 Institutions of higher education, faculty, and student leaders have the opportunity to educate, inform, and facilitate youth political identity development and participation for the future of democracy.<\/p>\n

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[1]<\/a> Campbell, Angus et al. 1960. The American Voter. Chicago, Illinois: University Of Chicago Press; Wattenberg, Martin P. 2008. Is Voting for young People? New York: Pearson Education Inc.<\/p>\n

[2]<\/a> Bennion, Elizabeth A. 2005. \u201cCaught in the Ground Wars: Mobilizing Voters during a Competitive Congressional Campaign.\u201d The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 601(1): 123\u2013141.<\/p>\n

[3]<\/a> Cohn. D\u2019vera. 2010. \u201cCollege Students Count in the Census, but Where?\u201d Pew Research Center for Social and Demographic Trends.\u00a0 https:\/\/www.pewsocialtrends.org\/2010\/03\/15\/college-students-count-in-the-census-but-where\/<\/p>\n

[4]<\/a> Gentry, Bobbi. 2017. Why Youth Vote: Identity, Inspirational Leaders, and Independence<\/em>. Springer.<\/p>\n

\n

Bobbi Gentry is an assistant professor of Political Science at Bridgewater College, a small liberal arts institution in Virginia. As a scholar of teaching and learning, Gentry focuses on improving student engagement in the classroom through simulations, policy problem\/solution proposals, and research projects.\u00a0 She is also a youth voting scholar and does extensive research in political identity development.\u00a0 Her current work on the scholarship of teaching and learning includes best practices in internships, curriculum review in higher education, and identity development in the Political Science classroom.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bobbi Gentry, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Bridgewater College, is a guest contributor for the RAISE the Vote Campaign. The views expressed in the posts and articles featured in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":734,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[30,31,16,27,29],"tags":[32],"class_list":["post-732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-polling","category-student-government","category-student-registration","category-student-voters","category-youth-voters","tag-league-of-women-voters"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/raisethevote\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/raisethevote\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/raisethevote\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/raisethevote\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/raisethevote\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/raisethevote\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/732\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/raisethevote\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/734"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/raisethevote\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/raisethevote\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/connect.apsanet.org\/raisethevote\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}