Voting Limitations Faced by College Students

American college students represent a demographic of voters that typically experience a low voter turnout. For example, young adults aged 18 through 29 formed around 21% of the voting eligible population in 2014, but voter turnout for this demographic has reached record lows in recent years. It is important that college students are civically engaged as they represent the vast majority of young populations in the United States, with 40% of 18-to-24-year-olds being enrolled in college.

Maya Majikas, co-president of nonpartisan group OSU Votes, said low voter turnout among college students is caused by several barriers that restrict students at their universities.

“I think a lot of it just comes down to a lack of education about the rights you have as a voter,” Majikas said.

Majikas is a student at Ohio State University where she studies public affairs and political science. OSU Votes is a student-led movement designed to register, educate and encourage college students to vote.

“Sometimes poll workers won’t understand that it is actually acceptable, that your driver’s license address does not have to match your current address because as college students, we are moving around constantly so our address is constantly changing,” Majikas said.

Another difficulty students face when trying to vote is understanding where their polling location is, especially if they have recently moved to a new location or away from their campus.

“Knowing where their polling location is really hard because they are constantly moving all of the time, students expect their polling locations to always be in the same place,” Majikas said.

There are signs that more college students are coming out to vote in local, state and federal elections. The Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University calculated that about 31 percent of young people age 18 to 29 voted in last year’s election cycle, which is about 10 percentage points higher than in 2014.

Majikas also believes that politicians and various board of elections located throughout Ohio have not always advocated for college students.

“Because if you’re not even reaching out to this population, you’re just writing them off and telling them essentially that they are not worth your time in engaging them, what does that say to them? It says, ‘Well, I don’t need to be engaged because nobody wants me to,’” Majikas said.

Portage County Treasurer Brad Cromes agrees that in the past, politicians and board of elections members did not always make college students feel welcome while practicing their right to vote. He does believe this has improved.

“Over time, we have not been intentional about making it easy for students to participate in the process,” Cromes said. “The good news is we have gotten much better at training folks on that, so it is less of an issue than it once was, and colleges and universities have gotten much better at trying to provide students with good information about what ID is required.”

Cromes is hopeful that a new initiative recently introduced by Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose called automatic voter registration (AVR) will help more people engage in the democratic process, particularly college students.

Secretary of State Frank LaRose announced on April 24th the formation of a bipartisan working group to examine ways to modernize voter registration in Ohio. The group is seen as a first step towards eventually implementing an Ohio version of automatic voter registration.

“Anytime you have an interaction with the state, it tracks your address and updates it,” Cromes said. “So, if you are moving and you go to the post office and change your address then it will automatically report that address change over the voter registration system. That would make a big difference as well because college students are a very mobile population group. They move from dorm to dorm, from apartment to dorm, apartment to apartment frequently over the course of their four to six years in school.”

There is hope that automatic voter registration can make voting more accessible, saving voters time and money in the process.

“That version of automatic voter registration is a positive step,” Cromes said. “We still have a long road to go between introduction and implementation. I hope he (LaRose) is able to bring the legislature around on that.”

Cromes suggested another way to reduce barriers for college students and young voters is by allowing voters to use electronic forms of identification when they visit their polling locations.

“A change in the law that would allow people to present electronic versions of documents would make a big difference,” Cromes said. “Right now in Ohio, you cannot present an electronic version of a utility bill or some other form of ID at the polling place. It has to be a paper copy.”

Alyssa Johnson, a co-advisor for OSU Votes, has noticed that students are not as interested in casting their votes for local and state elections even though local offices and issues have a direct impact on a student’s home and college community. Officials make decisions on topics like student debt, funding for higher education, and the economy.

“We have noticed that student voting rates drop when it is not national presidential election years, so a lot of the things that students don’t vote for affect them the most,” Johnson said.

Johnson also expressed concern about the difficulties students must deal with when completing the process to fill out an absentee ballot.

“I don’t know if our absentee ballot process is as easy and user-friendly as people think it is,” Johnson said. “For students particularly, and we are talking traditional-age students, they could be first-time voters and if their parents weren’t politically active, where do they learn these skills?”

Johnson said OSU Votes has struggled to maintain transparent communication with regional Ohio State campuses and board of elections. In some cases, this miscommunication has caused confusion for students and discouraged them from voting.

“Making sure that the information we are giving is consistent with all of the other board of elections across the state is sometimes really difficult and it can also be a restriction for students because there is a lot of information out there and different boards operate differently,” Johnson said.

Voting is not the only way college students can have a positive impact on their communities.

“Civic engagement goes beyond voting,” Majikas said. “Though voting is a great first step in getting involved in the political process, it is not the only step. There are so many other ways to get involved. Just because you do not vote on election day does not mean you cannot be civically engaged in any other way.”

Featured Image by: Tyler Haughn