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Every Monday for the past few weeks, Cal Poly Pomona student Melvyn Hernandez has been manning a table outside the Bronco Student Center to register fellow students to vote. He comes prepared with snacks, prizes and a quiz testing students’ election year know-how.

“When it comes to things like Super Tuesday, or what a swing state is, or even who the major candidates are for the elections, a lot of students don’t really have the time to be aware of that,” said Hernandez, an architecture major. “A lot of students — even with how publicized the different debates and everything are– they’re too busy to be following it.” 

Hernandez and volunteers across California’s colleges and universities are trying to add something important to the endless to-do list of the typical college student this fall: A crash course in Elections 101. In a year when barriers to students voting in states like North Carolina and Arizona have made headlines, California students are getting out the word about key election deadlines and directing their peers to nearby polling places. They’re also raising awareness about down-ballot contests that directly affect students’ lives — such as a proposed minimum wage increase — but which could get lost in the noise of a contentious presidential race.

Students and administrators involved in nonpartisan voter-turnout efforts at California State University campuses said their task this election cycle is to provide reliable information to a population that’s simultaneously pressed for time and overwhelmed by the volume of biased political messages. Students said another challenge is to galvanize potential voters disappointed by their options in the presidential race — and perhaps turned off from voting altogether.

“That’s the point of why we’re here,” Hernandez tells students if they’re embarrassed to admit they don’t know much about nominees and ballot measures. “So that you are aware and you can go ahead and further pursue finding out more about the candidates.”

Similar efforts are underway at many University of California (UC) campuses, community colleges and private schools.

Youth voter turnout has historically lagged the rates among older voters. But recent elections have seen larger shares of young voters. The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE) at Tufts University estimates that 50% of voters age 18 to 29 voted in the 2020 election, up 11 points from 2016. That rate still trailed voter participation among older voters, though; 69% of voters 35 to 64 and 74% of voters 65 and older turned out in 2020. 

But young voters are not a monolith. Those with a bachelor’s degree or more tend to vote at higher rates than peers with a high school education or equivalent, according to a CIRCLE analysis. Which college a student attends matters, too, though not as much. A 2024 working paper by a group of higher education researchers reports that enrolling at a top-rated research university or a liberal arts college increases students’ probability of voting relative to students enrolled at a two-year college. 

A recognition that colleges should play a role in supporting young voters is part of the impetus behind the California Secretary of State’s California University and College Ballot Bowl Competition, a program that seeks to harness intercollegiate rivalry to encourage voter registration. 

On-campus voting locations are another way to ease what could be students’ first time filling out a ballot. This year, for example, all Cal State campuses are home to one or more ballot drop-off locations, and many also serve as vote centers.

College students attending school outside their home county or state usually have a choice of where to register to vote. In California, students can register in the county where they’ve relocated for school or in the home county where their family lives.

Jackie Wu, a former Orange County election official who has worked with Cal State Fullerton on civic engagement, said that university administrators shouldn’t settle for low voter participation on campus just as they wouldn’t pass up a chance to increase slumping graduation rates.

College “is our last opportunity, in a structured system, to encourage voting and civic participation,” she said.

Offering students ‘little hints and pebbles’ 

Striking the right tone in an election awareness campaign can be a delicate balance for college administrators and student volunteers. 

They’ve got to educate low-information would-be voters — the students who don’t know the answers to Hernandez’s questionnaire. Yet, they have to be mindful that omnipresent political advertising can leave students unsure of what to believe. And, of course, universities have to offer fastidiously nonpartisan messages, even in a polarized political climate saturated with sensationalist campaigning in the mad dash before Election Day.

“There’s so much pressure put on everyone. You know, ‘The election is really important. Make sure you turn out to vote. The future depends on it,” said Wu. “A lot of times (students) may not feel like they know where to ask for help and who they can go to for help that isn’t trying to pressure them to vote a certain way.”

The solution: Lots of voter education events and some casual nudges.

Besides voter registration booths, Cal State students this fall have helped organize panels about ballot propositions and forums where students can mingle with candidates for local office. Cal State Fullerton student government even had a table at the weekly on-campus farmer’s market to register voters, Wu said.

Credit: Courtesy of Cal Poly Pomona

Small reminders help, too. Jeanne Tran-Martin, Cal State’s interim director of student affairs programs, said some schools encourage students to confirm whether they are registered to vote by placing a link in their online student dashboards. This year, Cal Poly Pomona ordered custom coffee cup sleeves with a QR code linking to TurboVote, a website where students can register to vote. 

“We’re not trying to get in anyone’s face and saying, ‘This is so important. Why aren’t you doing this?’” said Michelle Ellis Viorato, the campus’s civic and voter empowerment coordinator. “We’re just trying to drop little hints and pebbles to get people to think about, ‘Oh right, this is coming up. I need to remember to do this.’”

The low-key messaging could help Cal Poly Pomona to reach this fall’s voter turnout goal of 72%. That would be a slight increase from the school’s 70% voting rate in the last presidential election, according to a report by Tufts University’s Institute for Democracy & Higher Education, which estimates voter participation by merging student records and voting files. (You can look up the voter turnout records of selected other campuses here.)

For students already registered, breaking down the steps to cast a ballot can help to relieve some election-season jitters. 

At Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, where about 94% of students were from outside the county and roughly 15% were from outside California as of last fall, voter registration volunteers have been fielding lots of questions about when and where students can find their ballots. 

Tanner Schinderle, the secretary of executive staff at Associated Students, the school’s student government, said volunteers help students to think through their options, like getting absentee ballots, asking a parent to mail them their ballot or registering in San Luis Obispo County.

Encouraging students to ‘look down your ballot’

Voter registration has been a sprint at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo, which kicked off the fall term on Sept. 16, a late start compared with universities that operate on semesters rather than quarters.  

Associated Students has averaged two to three voter registration drives per week, Schinderle estimates, thanks to more than 80 students trained on the process. Those students have been running a voter registration booth in the University Union Plaza. Volunteers also knocked on the doors of virtually every first-year student living on campus, Schinderle said, offering voter registration help. 

The overall reaction has been positive, he added. But several students interviewed for this story said they’ve encountered peers frustrated with national politics.

“There’s a common attitude of, ‘Pick the lesser of two evils,’” said Cade Wheeler, a mechanical engineering student who is Cal Poly Pomona’s student body president.

Alejandra Lopez Sanchez, who serves as secretary of external affairs at Cal Poly Pomona Associated Students, said a few of the students she met at an on-campus voter outreach event in October remarked they weren’t sure if they would vote in this election. 

“Especially for the presidential candidates, they’re like, ‘Who am I supposed to vote for if I don’t like either of them?’” she said.

But voters who look past the race for the presidency will find statewide contests that could make a concrete difference in students’ lives. Proposition 2, for example, would authorize a $10 billion state construction bond for TK-12 schools and community colleges. And for students working minimum wage jobs, Proposition 32 would set higher wage floors.  

Courtesy of Cal Poly Pomona

Weston Patrick, the secretary of external affairs at the Cal Poly San Luis Obispo’s Associated Students, finds the best tactic is to refocus students on local races in San Luis Obispo that influence public transit systems, housing and other areas important to students.

“That was kind of a guiding principle, telling students, ‘Hey, if you’re not feeling thrilled about your choices at the top of the ballot’ — which we certainly did get some of that sentiment from some students — ‘look down your ballot,’” he said.

That’s why Patrick was excited to see students strike up conversations with candidates for San Luis Obispo City Council at an event Associated Students hosted on campus. (It probably didn’t hurt that students could grab a free doughnut if they talked to one or more candidates.)

Iese Esera, president of the systemwide Cal State Student Association, said he hopes strong campus voter turnout will influence legislators shaping legislation relevant to students, like how much the state invests in higher education. 

“We are tax-paying citizens who also pay tuition, for example, who also have to afford the same cost of living that you do and that our parents do,” Esera said.

Weighing the election’s impact on jobs and cost of living

Students said their peers are most concerned about how the election could impact students’ tuition, cost of living and career outlook.  

“In my generation, a lot of us talk about how expensive everything is, especially in California,” said Megan Shadrick, Cal Poly Pomona Associated Students vice president. “It can be pretty discouraging as we’re trying to move forward into our careers.”

A national survey of more than 1,000 college students by Inside Higher Ed and Generation Lab in September found that 52% of respondents ranked the economy and cost of living as their top issue at the ballot box this year. 

Efforts to make voting easier could benefit students who are short on time because they’re working multiple jobs or managing a long commute.

One thing to know is that California voters can mail their ballots, drop them at any ballot box or deliver them to any polling place in the state. Similarly, Tran-Martin likes to remind students who plan to vote in person that if you are waiting in line to vote when the polls close at 8 p.m., you will still get to cast your ballot.

And when all else fails, a little positive peer pressure can help.

Bahar Ahmadi, a student studying environmental engineering at Cal Poly Pomona, volunteered at an election fair held on Oct. 10. Reached about a week later, Ahmadi, a first-time voter, said she might join a group of friends for moral support as they drop off ballots together. 

“I feel like the first time doing it might feel intimidating alone,” she said.