Getting out the vote on campus may mean teaching students how to use snail mail

Student and campus groups nationwide are getting creative about urging voter turnout for the midterms. Student media are running helpful guides, advocates are sending information ambassadors to classes and schools are holding mail-in-ballot days.

But absentee ballot rules vary widely from state to state, making a simple action complicated.

A 2024 CIRCLE study from Tufts University found 23% of young voters faced challenges registering to vote, meeting deadlines, or knowing where to go. 

Still, advocates on all sides want those students to hang in.

“Students really have a disproportionate amount of power with their vote. Their vote could be critical in flipping a key seat in this midterm election,” said Semony Shah, the president of the University Democrats at the University of Virginia.

Hello, absentee ballot days

On Oct. 6, the University of Maryland hosted its first Absentee Ballot Day at McKeldin Library on campus. 

According to Courtney Holder, the assistant director of Leadership and Community Services, the group helped approximately 214 students submit absentee ballots, she said. 

TerpsVote is the UMd’s voting coalition group under the Division of Student Affairs. It is a nonpartisan group working to increase civic and voter engagement across campus. 

“In 2024, we noticed that a lot of students were sending an absentee ballot. They weren’t even sure about how to address the envelope to send their ballot, or their ballot request,” Holder said, blaming it on a generation that does not have to send snail mail often.

The UMd event was inspired by American University’s Absentee Ballot Day, which started in 2022. 

Holder said TerpsVote ambassadors provided materials during its Absentee Ballot Day, such as finding a witness, a notary signature, and stamps. 

From Sept. 14 to Sept. 17, American University held its Absentee Ballot Day. 

Melanie Bullock, director of the Center for Leadership and Community Engagement, a student involvement group at American University, helped run the event. 

“We helped a little over 340 students,” Bullock said, explaining that most absentee ballot questions came from transfer and first-year students. 

AUVotes, a nonpartisan campus-wide initiative at American University, provided transportation and stamps for students, she said.

According to Bullock, Gwendolyn Reese, Director of Research, Teaching and Learning in the University Library, did most of the heavy lifting researching each state’s regulations, so the university library guide had the most accurate information. 

Nadia Holahan, a first-year student at American University and first-time voter from New Jersey, submitted her absentee ballot. 

“If I had to fill out the ballot by myself, I think I would have become quite confused; I was asked to fill out my address quite a few times, for instance, and didn’t know when it was appropriate to use my home address or the address of the university,” Holahan said in an email. 

She added that she filled out her ballot with her parents’ help.

A vote-by-mail by state

Oregon is a vote-by-mail state, and voters who live in or are registered to vote in Oregon are automatically sent a ballot. 

University of Oregon’s nonpartisan Civic and Voter Engagement group is made up of students and faculty encouraging  students to register and send their ballots. 

“In general, when folks come to school and move in the fall, we’re reminding them that we’re on a term system, so students arrive only about three weeks before the deadline to register in Oregon,” said Karen Hyatt, the director of Government and Community Relations at the University of Oregon. 

Hyatt said leading up to election day, the group hosts tabling sessions and sends campus-wide emails every year to remind its students to register. 

George Mason’s Ambassador program

George Mason University’s MasonVotes, started in 2007, is a nonpartisan political news outlet. The group keeps its students aware of voting procedures for upcoming local and national elections. 

Dr. Jennifer Nicoll Victor, an associate professor of political science, said she created the Mason Voting Ambassadors program in 2022, a nonpartisan student and faculty organization. 

“They will do classroom presentations. The faculty will email us and request that Mason Voting Ambassadors come to their classroom,” Victor said.