Checklist of Things to Do & Who to Contact to Engage Students in the Electoral System

Get Students Registered to Vote. Help them register each other. (e.g. Occidental College, San Francisco State)

• Check registration deadline in your state
• Get administration, faculty, coaches and students on board — contact college president, registrar, department chairs, student groups, housing office
  • Build local coalitions (e.g. San Francisco State)
• Involve student groups and recruit volunteers (e.g. San Francisco State) — contact PIRGs, student government, Young Republicans/Democrats, etc
• Distribute voter registration forms and make voter registration part of your campus:
  • Incorporate into course registration packets and online course registration — contact Registrar
  • Include in paychecks, loan disbursements, course catalogs — contact financial aid, payroll, registrar, campus publications
  • Incorporate into student orientations — contact orientation director/student affairs office
  • Mail registration forms to all students
  • Distribute national mail-in registration form
  • Door-to-door Visits in student housing (UC Santa Barbara student groups registered 2,400 students in one night) — contact RAs, housing office
  • Add online voter registration links to campus & student websites — contact webmasters
  • Distribute registration forms in classes — contact department heads, faculty organizations and individual faculty
  • Set up registration drives at campus events (e.g. athletic events) and in student residence halls —contact housing office and student government
  • Use technologies like Facebook — link with YourRevolution.org
• Recruit students/faculty as voter registrars and volunteers
  • In each department
  • In each dormitory, sorority, fraternity — contact housing office and inter-fraternity or Pan-Hellenic councils
  • To set up tables in high-traffic campus locations (student unions, administrative offices, dining halls, bookstores, libraries, sporting events, etc.)
  • To register voters at campus events (blood drives, speakers, other events)
• Increase visibility of voter registration efforts
  • Advertise with handbills, posters etc. — contact student government
  • Leave voicemails, text messages and email reminders to register (especially close to deadlines) — contact campus technology staff
  • Make announcements at unusual places
  • Hold parties and a kickoff event to register students
  • Work with campus and local media — contact reporters
• Connect with other campuses and borrow effective strategies
  • Utilize interactive online tools (Facebook, blogs, other social networking, twitter, wikis — see YourRevolution.org for how students can email their Facebook friends to see if they’re registered)
• Create drop-off locations for registration forms (count, publicize and send them in)
• Keep track of registered voters for follow-up

Encourage On and Off-Campus Engagement about Issues, Ballot Initiatives and Candidates

• Hold events & develop materials to educate students — contact student programs and organizations (for co-sponsorships) and facilities (for locations).
• Create forums for student dialogue
• Publicize/explain ballot initiatives
• Incorporate election-related discussions into classes (e.g. freshman seminar)
• Encourage students to volunteer with political campaigns consistent with their political beliefs
  • Connect student volunteers with national and local campaigns and their campus representatives —campus service should be a central resource, include information on College Republicans and College Democrats, McCain’s and Obama’s national websites, ways to get involved in local and statewide political races.
  • Have students participate in off-campus projects, like voter registration efforts in underrepresented communities. (e.g. Baldwin Wallace project that registered 700 students at local jails). Work through Student Activities or service learning center. Contact the political parties, groups like League of Women Voters and Project Vote
  • If students want to make an impact in other states, remind them that both parties and campaigns have remote voter calling programs where volunteers in states with less tightly contested elections can use their cell minutes to call people in states that are more contested.
• Link with campus service learning and civic engagement efforts
  • Incorporate election volunteering into service learning courses (e.g. freshman seminar) — contact service learning center and faculty groups
  • Create election-related service project (e.g. community educational forum)
  • Organize service days where campaigns participate in campus service projects — contact campaigns and service projects
• Organize events (debates, fairs, forums, screenings of debates, etc.) with candidates and campaign representatives (e.g. barbecue, political action days , DebateWatch) — contact student groups and academic departments such as political science, geography & communications
• Create a website with info and links about issues
  • Include links to help student find relevant races, issues, and ways to participate
  • Summarize voting record information. See the League of Women Voters resource site and Votesmart.org

Help Students Vote on (or before) Election Day

Before election

• Establish and promote an on-campus polling place — contact local elections office
• Absentee ballots (tips) — contact local elections office or get online
• Voting while abroad
• Design and distribute a pledge to vote
• Encourage students to volunteer at polling places
• Familiarize new voters with the process — contact county election board

Right before or during election

• Get out the Vote initiatives (e.g. San Francisco State)
• Set up phone banks to remind students to vote
  • Purchase copy of voter file — contact county election board
  • Use lists you’ve kept from voter registration drives
• Help students get to their off campus polling sites (organize walking, rides to polls)
• Encourage faculty to release students early from class on election day
• Send broad email, text message, etc. to remind students to vote
• Publicize polling places
• Election night open houses (e.g. Central Michigan U)
• Poster, leaflet and use other creative ways to visibly remind people to vote