As the November 2020 election draws closer, Student Public Interest Research Groups have been working on college campuses across the country to educate younger generations on how to register, and the importance of voting.
Despite being the largest voting block in the country, younger generations vote at lower rates than older generations, according to Elizabeth Radcliffe, a University of Oregon student and the state board chair for OSPIRG. As a result, the Student PIRGs New Voters Project focuses on increasing youth voter turnout.
Students with the OSPIRG New Voters Project spent spring term building up a coalition of student-run groups at the University of Oregon to “foster a culture of voting” on the campus, Radcliffe said.
The student-led organization had to shift plans after the coronavirus pandemic began, implementing tactics like phone banking to help young people register to vote. Over 40 volunteers attended OSPIRG’s virtual event, Democracy Blitz, on July 28 to help register youth voters through studentvote.org.
“This work is especially important now because we have recently seen huge movements across the country where young people are showing that we are passionate about a lot of issues and we are making our voices heard,” Radcliffe said at the event. “We know that now more than ever it’s really important to make our voices heard at the ballot box and register to vote.”
Sithara Menon, the state board vice chair for CALPIRG, spoke at the event about her own experiences helping register students to vote at the University of California, Los Angeles. Menon coordinated the New Voters Project at UCLA for the 2018 midterms and helped almost 1,000 students register to vote. “We saw more than double increase in voter turnout at UCLA since the previous midterms in 2014,” she said.
While registering students to vote at UCLA, Menon said she noticed a lot of students were not able to vote because they didn’t change their address or didn’t know that they had to wait in a line to vote.
College students move frequently, which Radcliffe said is one of the biggest barriers to voting young people face. “A lot of people don’t know that every time they move, they have to update their voter registration information,” she said.
Radcliffe has led the OSPIRG New Voters Project internship over the summer with 24 interns from Oregon. The student interns have helped register people to vote across the state. During Democracy Blitz, the student interns and volunteers helped register people to vote through relational organizing, where they connected with their own communities.
Sheila Trnjanin, an OSPIRG intern, said she has been reaching out to her friends and peers to explain the importance of voting.
“I am hoping that students going to UO can see that being involved in their democracy is a pretty important step in making changes they want to see and making sure their voices are heard,” Trnjanin said.
