SUNY Oswego has encouraged students to not only register to vote but also go to the polls and fill out absentee ballots for the 2022 midterm election.
Vote Oswego is a campaign run during election years that reaches out to students in various ways in order to help them register to vote and with the voting process. This is done through posters, tables around campus, chalk art outside buildings and social media. The group is made up of students, and run by staff and it is offered as an academic course.
This year’s midterm election has proven that it is going to be a very significant year when
it comes to the outcomes of each race. All over the country, the amount of college-aged students registering to vote has risen in record numbers. According to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, or CIRCLE, there are around 8.3 million newly eligible voters for the 2022 midterm elections who were not old enough to vote in the 2020 presidential election, but have turned 18 since.
Kelsey Jones, SUNY Oswego’s program coordinator for Civic Engagement and Community Services, who is working on Vote Oswego is hopeful that the turnout of actual voters will be the same as those who registered.
“In 2020 we had 80% of students register to vote and we had 60% of students actually vote,” Jones said. “We’re hopeful to make that margin a little less as we go into 2022.”
Jones has noticed trends as she has worked with Vote Oswego this midterm election. “One trend is that a lot of students don’t know what midterms are used for,” Jones said. “This midterm election is actually a big year because it’s going to shift the House and the Senate either blue or red and a lot of students don’t know or relate that to social issues that they’re really passionate about.” These current trends relate to how and why voter registration among college students is at a record high for this midterm election.
There are many reasons for this change. Dr. Allison Rank, a political science professor at SUNY Oswego, who also ran the Vote Oswego campaign during the 2020 elections pinpoints the changes in voter turnout and registration to around the time when the coronavirus pandemic started. “Prior to COVID I heard a lot from students about how it doesn’t matter who gets elected and it doesn’t have anything to do with me and during COVID, really nobody was saying that,” Rank said.
Another resource Vote Oswego uses in order to help students register and be able to cast their votes is an online resource called Turbovote. This online platform came about during the pandemic, when Vote Oswego had to help students through the voting process virtually.
“Turbovote helps students use the online voter registration tool that New York State has and if they are not going to vote online it helps them fill out a PDF of their voter registration form and sends them an addressed stamped envelope to send into the board of elections,” Rank said. “It also does the same thing for absentee ballot forms.”
Turbovote also sends reminders to those who sign up a month before an election and the day before.
Abigail Connolly | Oswegonian
