The Higher Education Act (HEA) requires institutions to make a good faith effort to distribute voter registration forms to students. But providing registration opportunities is more than just a legal obligation. It's an excellent way to teach, model and encourage civic participation on campus. Approximately two-thirds of students aged 18 to 24 who did not vote in the 2010 elections cited reasons that could be easily remedied by empowering students with information about the voting process, according to the Fair Elections Legal Network (FELN), a national, nonpartisan organization based in Washington, D.C.
In order to benefit students, comply with the HEA, and build upon your existing civic engagement efforts, AACRAO is again working with FELN to offer institutions several voter registration resources. FELN's mission is to remove barriers to registration and voting for traditionally underrepresented constituencies, including students.
Resources include:
State-Specific Student Voting Information
First, FELN has agreed to provide AACRAO members with state-specific student voting guides. These can be obtained in a pdf format to be distributed directly to students or in a text format to be incorporated into a student voter information website. The University of Wisconsin-Madison's provides an excellent example here.
Contact info@campusvoteproject.org to get a student voting guide for your state.
Online Voter Registration Tools
In 2008, Congress included a change in the HEA allowing schools to comply through electronic distribution as long as the transmitted message is devoted exclusively to voter registration and includes a form or link to a registration form. Working with FELN to build a campus-specific student voting website allows you to include a voter registration tool on that site. Your institution easily meets compliance by sending such an email to the entire student body with links to registration forms.
TurboVote and Rock the Vote created two of these tools. AACRAO members may create a personalized link that can be provided to students via email or a widget that may be embedded into a high trafficked school website (i.e. the course registration website). The personalized link will allow schools to provide the voter registration opportunity to students as required by the HEA and be able to see how many students used the link to register to vote. Here are links to obtain a free personalized tool and contacts for more information:
ùï Rock the Vote: www.rockthevote.com/partner. Contact Amanda Brown at amanda.brown@rockthevote.com or (202) 719-9910.
ùï TurboVote: https://turbovote.org/admin/referral_codes/new. Contact Sam Novey at sam@turbovote.org or (410) 903-6911 to learn more about the expanded paid program, which allows an applicant to complete a registration form online, receive a completed version in the mail with a preaddressed stamped envelope that the applicant can sign and return to get registered
Students who use this link will receive information about upcoming voting dates, ID requirements, and polling place locations.
National Voter Registration Day is Tuesday, September 24. Is your school participating?
Sign up now at www.NationalVoterRegistrationDay.org Write to info@campusvoteproject.org to let us know when you do.
National Voter Registration Day is a national nonpartisan effort in which volunteers and organizations will hit the streets┬" to register voters all over the United States. This single day of coordinated ï¬┬üeld, technology, and media efforts will create pervasive awareness of voter registration opportunities--allowing us to reach tens of thousands of voters or more who we could not reach otherwise. Go to www.NationalVoterRegistrationDay.org to learn more about this effort and to sign up.