Transcript
Speaker: I think what we need to do is explain how our principles of free speech, free inquiry, will help serve the cause of justice. The First Amendment, the constitutional freedom of speech and freedom of conscience that is the bulwark of our democracy.
Speaker: There was a passion in what was being said affirming this, what people consider a sacred constitutional right, freedom of speech and freedom of association.
Speaker: Hi, Speech Matters listeners. We'll be dropping our regular monthly podcast episode next week, but in the meantime, we have a bonus episode for you. The center hosted Ask Me Anything About Student Voting earlier this week, a webinar featuring Brianna Sia, executive director at GenVote, Peter McDonough, General Counsel at the American Council on Education, and Clarissa Unger, Executive Director of the Students Learn, Students Vote Coalition.
Speaker: If you missed their dynamic conversation about the ever-shifting landscape of voting rules and regulations, you can listen to it now. Given that we're celebrating both National Voter Registration Day and Constitution Day this week, this episode has particular resonance. There is no better way to support democracy than by casting your ballot.
Speaker: Enjoy. Hi, everyone. Welcome. i'm Michelle Deutschman. I am the executive director at the UC National Center for Free Speech and Civic Engagement. And so happy to have you join us. If you're a center regular, welcome back. If you're new to the center, welcome.
Speaker: So, This year, the Center is hosting a series of podcasts and webinars on the topic of student voting, both leading up to the midterm elections and then looking ahead to the next presidential election.
Speaker: This included last month's podcast episode, if you missed it, called Youth Power at the Polls, the evolution of college student voting rights, and we'll drop that into the chat for all of you.
Speaker: As some of you or all of you might know, today actually National Voter Registration Day, which is the perfect day to be talking about all things voting, especially for those of us working in higher education.
Speaker: And we even had some good news from the Supreme Court last night, which is a rare phenomenon. So we're we're set. I'm going to just set the table for a minute before we introduce our experts.
Speaker: Since the passage in 1998 of the Higher Education Act, colleges and universities across the country have had a legal obligation to make a good faith effort to distribute voter registration forms.
Speaker: Now, beyond these legal requirements, over the past few decades, many higher education institutions have engaged in extensive efforts to encourage students to vote in local, state, and federal elections.
Speaker: Now, heading into this fall term, so many administrators and others are facing this confusing web of rules and guidance on who can vote, when, where, and how. And we know that you have a lot of questions and I'm here to ask the questions, and we have three wonderful experts to answer them.
Speaker: We have Brianna Asiya, who's the executive director of GenVote. We have Peter McDonough, the general counsel of the American Council on Education. And we have, last but certainly not least, Clarissa Unger, executive director, Students Learn, Students Vote Coalition.
Speaker: want just make a note that Clarissa and Peter were two of the authors of ACE's recent issue brief on voting and college political campaign-related activities, which will drop in. It's definitely worth a read.
Speaker: And Brianna is coming to us from Arizona, where she and her team are leading Power Back, a movement school for election defense, a youth-led training tour, which is stopping in Texas, and North Carolina, Florida, Michigan, and of course, she's in Arizona to train young people and community members in election protection and defense.
Speaker: If you're one of those states, if you are in one of those states, make sure you connect with Genvo. So we're going to start digging into questions and themes from your questions. If you have additional questions, please use the Q&A feature and um I'll do my best to integrate them all in I want to ask each of our panelists to briefly introduce themselves and an overview of the organization um they work for. And I'm going to let, I'm going to ask, not let, Clarissa go first.
Speaker: All right. Michelle, thank you so much for having us here with you today. As Michelle mentioned, my name is Clarissa Unger. I'm the executive director of the Students Learn, Students Vote Coalition. Our coalition is a national nonprofit, nonpartisan coalition made up of nonprofit organizations and also colleges and universities.
Speaker: And we work to make sure that every student has access to the voting process in every single election. I'll just super quickly mention a few of the programs that our team leads just to both share some resources and also give you a sense of some of the work that we do.
Speaker: So as Michelle mentioned, today's National Voter Registration Day. Happy NBRD to all those who celebrate, which I hope is everyone on this call. Our team helps to lead a program called Campus Takeover, which helps colleges and universities and student groups make the most of the civic holidays like National Voter Registration Day.
Speaker: We also lead the next upcoming civic holiday, which I hope everyone is planning to participate in, National Voter Education Week. We have some great toolkits for folks on both of those.
Speaker: Our team also puts out a lot of other toolkits that are really helpful for folks within the higher education space. And I really recommend checking out our election engagement guide that's specific for this year that has a lot of great messaging and engagement strategies.
Speaker: And also, you might know us from the National Student Vote Summit. So every year for the last now 11 years, our team has but organized the National Student Vote Summit that will take place also in Arizona this year. Very hot spot for many reasons.
Speaker: That will be later in November following the election. So folks can come together and debrief and plan for the coming year. But that's a real quick summary of the scenes are Students Learned Students Vote Coalition.
Speaker: Thanks, Michelle. All right, Brie. Hey, friends. It's awesome always to be in community with Clarissa and Peter and appreciate Michelle for the introduction. My name is Brianna. You can call me Brie. use she, her pronouns. And I'm the executive director and founder of GenVote. I'm usually based out of Queens, New York.
Speaker: But I am calling in from Arizona, where our team is leading a national tour, first of its kind tour for young people and community members to get trained up on why it's important to protect our elections and understand where election protection and protecting our right to vote fits in the broader context of keeping our people safe across Arizona, Texas, North Carolina, Florida and Michigan.
Speaker: Generation Vote, if this is first time hearing about us, we are a national or youth-led organization ah fighting for our right to vote and adjust democracy for all. I started the org when I was a college student at SUNY Binghamton. Shout out to any SUNY folks on the call.
Speaker: But in 2022, our organization relaunched as a national movement org for young people and now have chapters across 10 different states in Washington, D.C. We work with our gen voters to do all sorts of things. We have national campaigns to fight for our right to vote. Most recently, we have been fighting against things like the SAVE Act in Congress, which I'll probably talk more about later.
Speaker: And we also run the largest national youth nonpartisan election protection program with our friends at A66R Vote and work very closely with coalition partners like SLSV and others on this call.
Speaker: If you want to get involved in GenVote, you can start a chapter. we have teams and hubs in high schools, colleges, and in towns across, again, those 10 states and in D.C. And we also run national fellowship programs, as well as a GenVote Defenders cohort, which I will also touch on later today, ah that organizes young people to be trained up as youth election captains in a few states. So really glad to be here and excited to share what I've been hearing on the ground.
Speaker: and I'll pass it back to y'all. Here's Peter. Hi, folks. Peter McDonough from the American Council on Education. Most of you, or many of you, may know ACE in one context or another. We're essentially the umbrella organization for higher ed.
Speaker: Virtually every higher ed association is a member, as is most of the institutions that you folks are at, graduated from, or probably can think of. But before I came to ACE a dozen years ago, I thought that it focused almost exclusively on what I call federal public policy.
Speaker: ah what i What I didn't know was it had been around for 100 plus years that it was formed in the the latter days of World War II when the White House was looking for an organizing effort to have higher education support the war effort.
Speaker: I didn't know that and toward the end of World War two The executive branch came to ACE and said, look, we've got this problem of being able able to have students who are currently soldiers and sailors and flyers come back from the Pacific, come back from Europe and take advantage of the GI Bill and go to college because so many of them left their high school classrooms before they got a diploma. We can't ask them to go back and sit there again.
Speaker: And hence, ACE created the GED ah for that purpose and owns the GED, works with Pearson pub pearson to administer the GED.
Speaker: I didn't know any of that. And what I also didn't know and appreciate is that ACE puts out a variety of things to hopefully help campuses ah navigate some things that have particular currency.
Speaker: And one of those, of course, is why we're here today. how And the issue brief that was mentioned earlier is ah product of an evolution. When I came to ACE, I was asked to pick up a document that we circulated that was about campaign-related um political activity, How does particularly a private institution avoid running afoul of its IRS limitations and avoided being seen as engaging as an institution in ah political campaign related activity while at the same time enabling and allowing its students and other community members to exercise their First Amendment rights?
Speaker: Ted Mitchell arrived in 2017 or so to ACE from being undersecretary for higher ed in the Obama administration. And he hyper-focused us on the then evolving and now daily challenge of registering to vote, voting challenges to efforts for people to do both things.
Speaker: And indeed, you know and um in intentional efforts to put in question the legitimacy of votes and individual voting. And so it started as an issue brief that was focused on campaign related political activity, added to it at the back end and now, frankly, has as the star of the show issues pertaining to that. And so the issue brief we mentioned and its emphasis on voting and registration, while certainly seeing the tie in issues pertaining to political activity on campus and and and the institution's obligations and sort of, you know, challenges of in that regard.
Speaker: becomes sort of the kind of thing that I wouldn't have expected to be as needed, but certainly is needed, as is all of you getting together as you do on this and other webinars to talk about how to help our students. So I'll stop there.
Speaker: All right. Thanks to all of you. i learned a little history there about the GED. And I also love that each of you is coming at this issue from sort of a different vantage point. Let's jump right into logistical challenges that are facing student voters in this coming election.
Speaker: Mail-in-ballot saga, emergency litigation at the Supreme Court. It's enough to make your head spin. As of today, the story has a happy ending, you know, in favor of voting integrity.
Speaker: But maybe one of you can catch us up on what people have been fighting about and your advice as of today on how best to move forward with that mail-in voting if you're a higher education institution.
Speaker: Yeah, I'm happy to jump in here. And as you noted, Michelle, I'm very happy that what I'm going to share is very different than what I would have shared yesterday. So very excited to share that mail voting remains secure, legal, and under the administration of state and administrators and local election officials. So folks may have heard that as of last night, three federal courts now, including the Supreme Court, have ruled that the United States Postal Service's rule on ballot mail is unlawful.
Speaker: And it would unnecessarily disrupt what is already a secure process. So what does all that mean? That means that these decisions have ensured that mail voting will be available this fall in states where it was already available.
Speaker: So that said, though, we are still encouraging all voters, especially student voters, to confirm their registration status right now. And today is a really great day for that since it is National Voter Registration Day. It's a great day not just to get registered for the first time, but to also check your registration. And everyone should check their registration this year just to make sure that you're all set and you're good to go.
Speaker: We also do encourage all voters to proactively make a plan to vote. And if you're able to do so in your state, we do highly recommend encouraging students to vote it early in person at their designated early voting locations if possible.
Speaker: Early voting really allows that voters have time to work through any sort of surprise challenges that might arise when they're they're voting, such as, you know, maybe folks show up to the polling site and they don't have the right ID that they need or they arrive at the wrong polling location because a lot of polling locations are changing as well.
Speaker: So if you plan to go early in person, you can mitigate those issues. But we also know that some people don't really have that option and some students really want to vote by mail so that they can vote in their home state if they're going to school out of state.
Speaker: So we really highly encourage mail voters to request and return their ballots as early as possible and also to track their ballots if you can do that as well, since mail delays are still pretty common these days.
Speaker: And if at all possible, to aim to return those mail ballots through drop boxes if that an option exists. Just to note, you can only drop your ballots into drop boxes if you are registered in the precinct that you're in. So if you are a student from out of state, you can't drop your mail ballot into a drop box for the state where you're at and expect it to get to a different state. We've seen that on some campuses in previous elections.
Speaker: Finally, I think it should also go without saying that the past few weeks have been particularly chaotic for local election officials as they're working really hard to prepare to administer these elections. So we also encourage folks to consider being a poll worker. This is a great opportunity to serve your community and support local election officials.
Speaker: And you can also help to show your gratitude to them by another civic holiday coming up, Election Hero Day on Tuesday, October 20th. But bottom line, voting by mail is safe, secure, and it will be run by the states, not by the USPS, which is great news.
Speaker: Thanks so much, Clarissa. I don't know, Peter or Bree, if you want to jump in you can. Otherwise, I'm going to go to the kind of the next thing. Clarissa kind of already was prompting me, which is actually about going to polling places, which is something, you know, you're talking about being a good idea if you can.
Speaker: But we've heard a lot of stories about campus polling places being closed. You know, there's one example where like kind of the district was drawn so as not to include a community college. So for those students who are able to physically go to those polling places, what are the some of the suggestions ah you have for institutions of higher learning to assist that effort?
Speaker: Well, why don't I just when i just offer high-level overview, and I am going to make reference to particular sections in the issue brief. We have some illustrative permissible and impermissible activities there, and we we kick off with a list, frankly, of supports pertaining to student voting on and off campus that would be permissible by institutions and or or by by groups in the institutions, making sure they don't get in the way of groups doing that.
Speaker: but But at a very high level, I'm going to encourage us to imagine like it's the old days and somebody's taking notes on a yellow piece of paper that's ah that's on a tab, right, as opposed to somewhere else. And you could actually draw a line down the middle and you did that.
Speaker: And on the left side, you wrote activities by the institution, by the college university. And on the right side, you wrote activities by student groups, whether they be partisan groups like young Republicans or otherwise, or activities by individuals on campus, students, faculty, visitors, et cetera.
Speaker: On the left side, the the side about institutions, you know what what what needs to be written as well is nonpartisan and neutral rules. The institution needs to be nonpartisan.
Speaker: The institution needs to have rules that apply for all comers and about all things and aren't making judgments about where to have a bus pickup that is known to favor yeah voters or potential voters for a particular group.
Speaker: probably not a good idea to have the bus pick up if five minutes after the young Republicans finish their talk in front of a lecture hall. You're cognizant of that.
Speaker: Problem with having ah a bus to get to a registration's location or or or an actual polling place? No. um How about funding that? Well, not from a federal level. There could be state limitations on funding, particularly for public institutions.
Speaker: But if they were yeah for the purpose of trying to inhibit the ability to to to participate in in and this this this effort of actually being a voter in this country.
Speaker: Probably suspect. Who wants to take that on? That's a different issue. On the right side of that page, students, student groups, faculty, visitors, et cetera. Well, we want to think about First Amendment.
Speaker: speech We want to think about what most private institutions have, even if they might not see themselves as subject to the First Amendment, which is effectively having the same rules. that we We are a place that it enables and encourages speech and activity. We don't inhibit it.
Speaker: And we certainly aren't going to make a judgment or make an effort to inhibit it based upon whether this is pertaining to an election, a particular candidate. My goodness, there's probably nothing that the Constitution should protect more and higher education missions should protect more than an individual's ability to be engaged person in a democratic process.
Speaker: and But Democratic, i I mean, not the party, right? I mean that you yeah the the process of of of figuring out who are going to be our elected officials, what what what whatite issues that are on a ballot will be voted up or voted down, et cetera.
Speaker: So there's a lot there, but the bottom line is, if it's an institution, be neutral and apply the rules fairly. Be nonpartisan. If it's an individual, and support and enable their ability to say what they want to say and act the way they want to act.
Speaker: of Of course, within reasonable time, place, and manner restrictions, that's a whole other set of issues for probably another day. oh All right. Well, I will say I am one of the few people that probably does still have those yellow pads, but you can also do columns electronically.
Speaker: So, so far, we've talked about mailing. We talked about going actually to the polling places. So, Bri, I'm going to turn it to you to talk about whatever follow up you have. But I also want to talk about identification at the polls and what are some things to be thinking about, especially as these rules change about what is permitted and what is not for voter identification.
Speaker: Yeah, before I go on voter ID, I did want to just share. appreciate you, Peter, like but visualizing what is and what isn't permissible in the sense that i think many times when people are thinking about voter access for college students, it the the the rules get confusing right with with campus voting. But I wanted to touch on the on-campus poll site stuff or getting students to poll sites.
Speaker: Two things. Every every election cycle, I'm out there doing election protection on the ground. And oftentimes one of the issues that I see the most when I'm out there as a non-person poll monitor supporting students along lines at college campuses. Right. And when you have ah long lines at poll sites on college campuses, sometimes students may not realize that they have the right to vote to stay on that line, even after when the poll site closed, as long they get there by, for example, nine o'clock.
Speaker: And so in terms of like, what are some ways that we can make sure that students know of their rights at these poll sites, whether be on a campus or adjacent to a campus, we always recommend that not only being a poll worker, but signing up for things like nonpartisan poll monitoring and supporting the 8 to 6 hour vote coalition work, where we have trusted student volunteers on the ground out there, making sure that students know their rights, that they feel supported.
Speaker: In some states where you're allowed to give out pizza or water, being able to do that right on the lines. And so that's one tangible way that we have gen voters out there supporting folks when it comes to accessing poll sites. The other thing I'll just name too is we all, I think a lot of the conversation is around issues when it comes to having poll sites on college campuses or access to it.
Speaker: But on the pro voter side of things, one of the One of the things that we encourage end voters to think about, that a lot of these issues for access is systemic. And so what does it mean to be training up our young people to damn demand to demand better for their campuses and for their communities? And so, for example, in some states, including in my home state of New York, we were seeing issues when it came to college students having access to poll sites, whether it was poll sites being closed down on their campus or just not having access to poll sites 30 minutes away or an hour away.
Speaker: And so we fought to pass an on-campus poll site law in New York in 2022 that now requires universities that have 300 registered students in that at their school to have a poll site accessible to students either directly on campus or adjacent.
Speaker: So i just want to contribute that to the conversation because I think those really tangible ways young people can get involved when it comes to on campus poll site access. But on the question of voter ID and also still in the lens of election protection.
Speaker: Yeah, we've seen a lot of things in the headlines, right, around potential changes to voter ID laws um and and changes that we have seen in the past year alone. Our friends at the Brennan Center reported that as of May 2026, at least nine states have enacted 12 restrictive laws, nine of which will be in fact by November.
Speaker: And some of those some of those state laws that have been changed include new voter ID requirements and other things that so voters may not be aware of right now, especially students that are like navigating school, coming back from summer break.
Speaker: One thing that folks may have also seen in national headlines was a thing called the SAVE Act, which was gaining momentum earlier in the year in Congress. This is a bill that would have required voters before the midterms to show their papers, basically proof of citizenship via passport or birth certificate.
Speaker: And luckily, because of students, ah coalitions and grassroots folks, we were able to stop the SAVE Act from passing. Gen voters were out there bird dogging elected officials, doing banner drops.
Speaker: And we were able to stop that effort to try to nationalize a restrictive voter ID law before the midterms. But even again, when I talk to students on the ground, they're like, hey, what was that SAVE Act thing? Did it pass?
Speaker: And so, again, there's lot of confusion around what it means to be required to vote. And so one thing that things we're recommending for students now is one, making sure as part of your voter plans, do you know your voter, your state's voter ID laws? Have they changed within the past year?
Speaker: Groups like VoteRiders have really good resources online, or you can check out your Secretary of State's website or your Board of Elections website, depending on who runs elections in your community, ah to check about what's required to vote for this upcoming election.
Speaker: And ultimately, if you just want to talk to someone about voter ID laws in your state, ah you can call the 866-HOUR-VOTE hotline. That is a year-long hotline. um And I can also drop in the chat for you the different language access spaces as well, where you can talk to someone and they can walk through with you whether or not a student voter ID is, for example, accepted in your state to vote.
Speaker: Other things beyond checking vote riders, A6R vote, we recommend that y'all see if you're, check do some research to see if your state has a free ID program. And with those id free ID programs, can you get IDs that are then approved for you to vote this upcoming November?
Speaker: And finally, ultimately, if you show up to a poll site and they say that you don't have the required documents to vote, you still have the right to ask for provisional ballot. And so this is something that we often see. Provisional ballots are quite popular we on college campuses. And I think clearly probably speak to a recent study that came out about provisional ballots in college students.
Speaker: But definitely know that you have right to ask for that and do some research to understand the provisional ballot and ballot curing process for young people and community in your states. But, Clarissa, maybe we want to share a bit more about that study about provisional ballots and students.
Speaker: Yeah, I just want to share. i Organizations like ours and like GenVote do so much work on the front end to make sure that students, you know, know their rights, know what they need to do, what they need to bring to the polls and whatnot. So a lot of voter education work.
Speaker: Of course, I mentioned we help to lead National Voter Education Week. So we are thinking about this all the time, not just during the week. But we are working with some researchers who are doing some looking into provisional ballots and have noticed, and because this is unpublished, I'm not going to cite too much, but notice that those precincts that are either on campus or serving student voters tend to be the ones with an exorbitant and percentage of provisional ballots being cast, which is maybe not super surprising, but I do think there both also needs to be some more education to students about
Speaker: what it means to vote provisionally and how to cure those ballots afterwards so that they are accepted. But also, quite frankly, we also need to do a lot of work with local election officials to make sure that they're staffing precincts that are serving a large number of college students appropriately, because they at this point should be expecting a little bit of a higher level of administrative burden.
Speaker: So I think going especially going into the future, that's definitely something that we're going to be looking into a bit more as well. no Thank you both. It's a lot of ah learning and a lot of tangible things people can do. i would say one of the things I feel like that is nice about this issue, even though there is so there are obstacles, unlike some of the like bigger issues where it's like, what do I do to like support academic freedom? And it's a little bit abstract. This is very concrete. Like people can get off this webinar and have a list of things to do for yourself and for others. And I think that's really great.
Speaker: I want to turn for a minute and talk a little bit about the issue of sort of, don't want to say safety, but yeah, there are concerns about safety at polling places. Just last week, a coalition of advocacy groups filed a lawsuit asking a federal district court in D.C. to declare unlawful any plans to have armed agents at polling places and to prohibit federal officers from carrying weapons near voting locations or other sites.
Speaker: where votes are collected. Even just the specter of this, I feel like it's scary. And I voted many times, but what must it feel like for people who are casting their boat vote for the first time? And I wondered if all of you could speak to this issue of sort of making sure that students in particular feel like they're safe and what, you know, colleges and universities can do.
Speaker: Well, I just wanted to make an observation. I think we all appreciate, but it's it's worth saying it anyway. Every school in America, every college in America has a mission.
Speaker: And it's hard to imagine that there's any colleges or universities that don't have a mission that includes preparing students to be participants in a democratic society. Again, that like that small case D.
Speaker: And when we talk about something like what Michelle just teed up, this is a place where advocacy, it's nonpartisan, but advocacy by leaders, it it it ought not be ignored.
Speaker: There's a lot of practicalities for having people feel safe. But there's also, think, a place for leaders, whether they're student life leaders, whether they be campus presidents, whether they be heads of of public safety, to say that not only do we want to protect you every single day, but when we talk about something as important as participating in voting in this country, we actually see that as part of our mission to make you feel comfortable to do that and indeed want to do that.
Speaker: Yeah, I appreciate you naming Peter, which is grounding us in like, what is the role of higher ed? And I just encourage everyone, like take a deep breath. Like I know, like it's a lot to imagine potential like federal agents out of poll sites or even just generally this country has had a history of folks intimidating, especially black and brown people at poll sites. This is nothing new, but I think what is new is the scale of potential threats that our communities are facing in this current moment.
Speaker: And so when we, and i have we actually, This year, more so than any year before my work of student organizing, I've been hearing questions and concerns from students about safety when it comes to voting, especially with potential, you know, ICE at the polls or federal agents at the polls.
Speaker: And I want to just remind everyone that it is illegal. Federal law, it's unambi unambiguous. It is illegal for federal agents to be deployed at poll sites and to interfere with elections. And there are hundreds of organizations and community leaders and student leaders that are right now planning and preparing different scenarios to make sure that our campuses and that our communities are safe when it comes to voting this fall.
Speaker: For example, even on this Power Back tour that we are doing right now, one of the most powerful tools that we can prepare people right now is to be doing trainings on knowing your rights, know your voting rights in your state, know what resources are out there in case there are any disruptions at your poll sites like the 866-R vote hotlines, do trainings on what it means to be a nonpartisan poll monitor so we have people out there making sure that we have trusted messengers on the ground to make sure voters know their rights in case there are any disruptions.
Speaker: And also these election protection coalitions in every single state are coordinating with local immigration organizations that are leading efforts to also do community and election defense trainings.
Speaker: And that we are all in conversation with each other. I will name that there's still a gap. I think there's still a lot of opportunities for student organizations and campus groups and campus administrators to get tapped into this conversation. So if you are in a state where we're doing power back, I highly encourage all to reach out to Jen Vote. We can make sure we get that info to you to attend an upcoming training in person or get tapped into the election protection coalitions in your state.
Speaker: But I think for me, the most empowering thing has been just seeing the amount of preparation, communication and energy that folks have right now to remind ourselves that we keep us safe. And ultimately, I think the other tool that we can encourage folks to do it when we're thinking about these potential threats is what does it mean to be showing up at poll sites in mass, bring a friend to vote and let's make voting voting a joyous activity.
Speaker: When you have you know party to the polls, It's going to make it harder for folks are going to come with, you know, maybe bad intentions to try to make it disruptive for folks in the community to vote. So I think voting itself is an act of resistance, especially in 2026. And so do know that if you are doing things like part of the polls, other parts like that, that I think very much speaks to this situation as well. And it's really important, too.
Speaker: Well, yeah, just please go ahead. Jump in there real quick and just add to that. So as i had mentioned earlier, we really encourage folks to vote early in person if they possibly can. But we also, Bree's point, know that a lot of folks might not feel comfortable going to the polls by themselves.
Speaker: And so for years, we've worked with colleges and universities to organize and help support these parties to the polls or celebrations on Vote Early Day, which is Saturday, October 24th. But we encourage folks to celebrate that at whatever point makes the most sense to them and to their campus communities.
Speaker: But again, just really encourage folks to go to the polls, go to the polls together if possible um and create celebrations and make voting more fun. i I love that you're infusing that energy because sometimes I think we think of voting or I know I do as both a responsibility and an obligation, but I don't often enough think of it as a celebration of like ah our rights and what it means to like live in a democratic republic. And so I'm really excited that you're bringing that back.
Speaker: I have a question that came in from one of our audience members beforehand that I thought was interesting and I'd love to get your thoughts on. The the question was, is it that students really need more information about voting or is it they actually need more motivation to actually cast their ballots?
Speaker: And I'm curious what you think about that because I'm I know one of the things I think about is this sort of this irony that there are studies about how younger voters can feel apathetic, like what impact can you really have? And yet so much of these court arguments and legislative battles are about student votes because they are so important. So there's this sort of paradox. And I'm just curious about your about your thoughts on is it either or It's probably both. But I open it up to the three of you.
Speaker: I'm going to give you a third option that I think might be most important. Okay. sos This starts to sound confusing. It needs to be simplified. needs to be simplified for anybody, but particularly students, particularly if you're first-time voter. Do we really think that students our campuses are thinking morning, noon, and night about what we're talking about here today?
Speaker: They need clarity. They need simplicity. Tell somebody that they can use a particular thing and they have to put it in and an envelope and then they find out they need a stamp, they're probably going to stop. They've never bought a stamp. um So think ahead about whether, you know, we have free and easy places to get a single stamp.
Speaker: If you're a public institution, is there a state law prohibition against spending money that way? there's There's not a reason why an institution can provide stamps on a nonpartisan basis. But it's easy. It's ease, I should say. And with all of the news, particularly in the last 24 hour news cycle,
Speaker: There's websites that need to be cleaned up, clarified, not added to. I mean, there's editing that needs to be done. We can't just keep adding more information to our to or to for our students. We need to simplify and clarify.
Speaker: Yeah, I think I think I'll i'll name two. It's also as like a Gen Z person where I often sometimes feel overwhelmed by everything going on in the news. And when talk to my friends, I think ultimately it is about like I think that this question of like motivation versus information, it ties down, I think, to just information generally. One, we often say voter confusion is voter suppression, just like what Peter named.
Speaker: It's important to make sure that we are educating our people, especially when there's constant headlines and news about voting and elections this year of what actually is required and the different options and availabilities to vote.
Speaker: But also I think it comes down to like informing our peers are like, if you care about affordability, if you care about rent, If you care about being able to afford groceries in our communities, this ties down, this this that issue ties directly to being able to exercise your power in one way, which is voting, right? And so I think like oftentimes we're seen it's seen as like,
Speaker: Civics is this like separate thing. But I do think more and more, and we've seen this in the primaries even this year, young people and Gen Z are seeing and informing ourselves that all the other issues we care about to just exist and thrive in this country do come down to one way of exercising power at the polls.
Speaker: And if they weren't trying to make it like so hard for us to vote, like there's a reason why they're trying to take your power away. Right. And so i i say I don't think either or I think it does come down to like informing our folks in all senses of the of the word, not just on elections, but just generally participating and existing in this in our communities.
Speaker: Laura, so you can add anything in? No, I think they nailed it. Okay. Yeah. Well, this is why the you guys are are the experts. So one of the things I was thinking about, and and obviously our participants, if you have more questions sort of on the logistical side, please put them in the Q&A. I kind of wanted to maybe pull back a little bit kind of from the weeds and just talk a little bit about some higher level things.
Speaker: Right. We have Article One, Section 4 of the U.S. Constitution that gives state legislatures the power, you know, to prescribe time, place and manner of holding elections for senators and representatives. But the federal laws also play a role and they have sort of a minimum standard.
Speaker: And the current administration has been working really hard to alter longtime interpretations of federal laws. And Peter, I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about the Higher Education Act and And last summer's, you know, Dear Colleague Letter and federal work study so that we can make sure that today's participants understand that this isn't just about mailing in for this particular midterm election. It's about something much broader and I would I would say more pernicious.
Speaker: Sure. That stuff is in the weeds, though, I'll say. but and But let me contextualize it a little higher up. You know, Michelle, you you started today but what with with a happy report about the Supreme Court's ruling yesterday.
Speaker: And I wrote down what you said. You said, the story has a happy ending. I'm going to take issue with that. And it's not even a chapter. I said so far, so far, this this story has a happy ending. Okay.
Speaker: Not even a chapter. So there was a fellow by name of Benjamin Hovland. He was appointed by President Trump back in 2019 and nineteen and he was unanimously confirmed to be part of what's called the U.S. Election Assistance Commission, which I think now has no commissioners because they've all been fired.
Speaker: he said He said yesterday after hearing about the decision, this is far from over. He said, what you're seeing is using the apparatus of the government, using federal agencies, using taxpayer dollars to push the narrative that only undermines confidence in our democracy and ultimately hurts voters and election officials.
Speaker: And, you know, this from somebody appointed by President Trump and unanimously confirmed and having lived through the effort of the nonpartisan U.S. Election Assistance Commission to assist.
Speaker: And so, you know when we think about assist and now we get to the Higher Education Act, around the time when we had the hanging chad issues in Florida and so forth, Congress said, well, higher education institutions should have a role here in assisting as well.
Speaker: So Higher Education Act was amended to require institutions to, quote, distribute a mail voter registration form to each student enrolled in a degree or certificate program and physically in attendance at the institution and to make such forms widely available to students at the institution.
Speaker: And we talked about this in our issue brief. We also mentioned that there's several states that have their own additional requirements. And it's done for a reason. We get back to that mission issue and that issue about encouraging, encouraging as you said, avoiding apathy and encouraging participation.
Speaker: Those things are really important. And it's they are central to our to institutional missions, but they're also required by the federal government. And one of the ironies, you mentioned federal work study and a dear colleague letter,
Speaker: a So it was back in, gosh, it's already a year ago, August of 2025, that Department of Education says, hmm, these works study a federal work study dollars, sorry, yeah yeah you really can't use those for um ah nonpartisan student or voter registration activities and other voting activities. But then when it amended its its federal student aid handbooks, it only spoke to that in the work off-campus section.
Speaker: And so if you think about tying these two things together, what I just said about institutional obligations under the Higher Education Act, there should be no reason why you can't use, for example, federal work-study dollars to employ students to meet the school's obligation that other employees would otherwise have to meet to get out that information to their students.
Speaker: And the same would hold true if you have particularized obligations under some state laws. You know, for instance, in Minnesota, all... Higher-rate institutions must provide their county with a residential housing list for both students that live in the institution's residential residential housing, but also for all students who live within the city or cities where their campuses are situated. And they got to do that within 20 days before the election. Well, that might be a perfect thing for work-study students to be doing on behalf of the institution.
Speaker: No prohibition. No, that's great. It's important to have some clarity. that Do either of you, Ria or your Krista, want to add something before I i move through our i move through our list? Okay.
Speaker: um Next, I want to spend a minute having someone talk about NSOLV data. For those people that don't know, Tufts University for many years had something called the National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement, or NSOLV.
Speaker: And the federal government has now warned that People should not rely on this data pointing to some unsubstantiated privacy concerns. And I'm hoping that someone can talk about why this data, this information really matters for institutions voter registration and get out the vote efforts just to contextualize it.
Speaker: Yeah. Yeah. So just to add a little bit to that, so the National Study of Learning and Voting Engagement was conducted by Tisch College at Tufts University, and there were over a thousand campuses that participated in the study.
Speaker: They have data for every federal election from 2012 through 2022, and they produced both a national report and a campus-level report, which was really helpful for campuses and was broken down by a bunch of different demographics.
Speaker: In addition to being a turnout tool, I want to also mention it was very much used as a teaching and learning tool as well. So a lot of folks that we work with on campus use this with their student leaders to help sort of assess what the landscape was on their campus and help them sort of walk through and determine how to how they would go about ah reaching out to students that were voting at lower levels.
Speaker: So a lot of folks used it in the classroom. This was also really helpful because the data was broken down by majors as well. So what we know from the data is that STEM students tend to turn out at much lower rates than students in the humanities.
Speaker: So that also spurred a lot of conversations across departments on campuses and again used for a teaching and learning purpose. Also having that national level data also did allow us to do modeling of campuses serving similar student populations. So we're not, you know, necessarily ah comparing the University of California's overall turnout to the community college systems or something like that.
Speaker: But it is mentioned in the ACE brief that the after the investigation ah that was launched by the Department of Education in February of this year, that no findings have been announced yet.
Speaker: but and And notably, as of today, there's still not been any findings about whether this study does violate any privacy concerns, which, as you mentioned, are unsubstantiated. And we do not believe that it violates any student privacy laws whatsoever because they took very careful steps to make sure that it didn't.
Speaker: folks do still have access to their 2022 reports if they happen to save them and had, you know, just access to them in general. The folks at Tisch College cannot send any new reports or past reports because of the ongoing investigation, unfortunately.
Speaker: But if folks campuses are comfortable and it might be worth a conversation with your own general counsels, that 2022 data is the data that is you know most akin to this midterm election in 2026. So we do encourage folks, if this is something that their campus is comfortable with, to go ahead and still use that 2022 data to help inform efforts this year.
Speaker: Thanks, Clarissa. i think it's really important to kind of explain how this is sort of the chilling effect. The accusation alone creates, you know, ah an inability to access important information. But I think it's good for people to know that they can still access data that's available and can be utilized. And I think there's a lot. I mean, again, a lot to be learned. It's a topic for a different webinar about who votes when and what issues bring different populations to the polls. And obviously, we're focused focused today on student voting. But, you know, it also makes me think about faculty and other members of university communities and who is helping to rally and encourage them to do similar, you know, civic engagement.
Speaker: Bree, Peter, anything else you want to add on NSOLV at this time? go ahead, Bree. Yeah, I think Quissa covered it. And I think even thinking about like long term, what does it mean to be encouraging our students to not just think about getting out the vote, but how do we protect that right to vote and expand access to voting for young people?
Speaker: We have found our GenVote and saw that it to be super invaluable when we've been thinking about what could it mean to pass things like student voter empowerment acts like we saw passed in California. and We have a bill that we introduced in New York, and we use NSOLV data to really think about the systemic kind of gaps we're seeing across civic education in different education systems like in SUNY or CUNY.
Speaker: And, you know, we, in some of these proposed student voter empowerment acts, we do include NSOLV as something that universities should be considering to enroll their campuses in if they if they aren't already to have that long-term sustainable data that can inform pro-voter efforts on their campuses and in their state. And so we have found it really helpful as a tool for not even, for not just like, again, getting out the vote efforts and understanding ways that we can reach different majors or do, you know, work with students to do like GTV on the ground, but even thinking again about like this as an invaluable resource that we can use to inform pro-voter laws that we can have our young people rally around, especially outside of election cycles.
Speaker: I wanted to spend a minute and Bree, maybe you can speak to this or or any of the three of you about some of the challenges that might be faced by different types of student groups and what kind of preparation um that might be more specified.
Speaker: You know, for instance, you know, first gen students, low income students. Wondering if you have anything to share about that as opposed to just sort of talking about the general group of of students.
Speaker: Yeah, I can i human speak for personal experience. I'm a first-gen student in my family, and I remember showing up to go vote my first primary. no one really spoke to me about voting deadlines. I didn't get civic education, really, in my family or in my schools prior to going to show to vote.
Speaker: And when I showed up to vote for my first primary, I was turned away because i no one told me that I had to register to vote by a certain deadline. and And so even I felt that feeling of shame of like, how come no one spoke to me? or didn why What was wrong with me for not knowing my rights? And so I just, when I saw this question, it deeply resonated. And I think oftentimes when we're, especially for GenVote, we start GenVote teams and hubs and not just four-year universities. We have GenVoters that are from community colleges, high school students, folks that aren't in school, or maybe they graduated and they're just, you know, a young person excited about voting rights and getting involved in this work.
Speaker: And oftentimes it's our first gen or working class students that name that they've never really been contacted by a candidate or a political campaign or by a student or they didn't have a political home where they could be learning about civics or what it means to get involved. And so I think for we talked a lot about different ways to address barriers to voting, like mail-in voting and understanding residency rules, which if you're a working class person and you're constantly moving because you can't afford rent one year on ah on campus versus off campus, then your next thing you know, your address changes. And next thing you you know, you can't someone tells you can't vote because you didn't change it in time.
Speaker: I think it's like these little things that we talked about earlier that disproportionately impact first-gen students, low-income students. And then ultimately, we need to be making sure as student organizers and movements to create inclusive political homes. And I say this in a nonpartisan political home way for folks to feel like welcomed into learning what it means to get involved and then hopefully organize other folks that aren't as reflected in these broader civic efforts. So that, at least is for us, is how we are trying to expand the student movement.
Speaker: Thank you for sharing that. And yeah, it's interesting, this idea of of a political home and and where that might be. And the fact kind of going back to what what Peter was saying, that it's part of the mission of the university to like, you know, kind of imbue and encourage these like civic engagements and that your university can be have many political homes, right? And as long as the institution is creating those spaces in a nonpartisan way that there is, you know, there's so much that institutions, you know, can do.
Speaker: I'm trying to think about other things, know, we're getting sort of, you know, close to the end. And so I think what I would like to do is just give each of you a chance to sort of share anything that you feel like maybe we didn't get to and, you know, and then and then we can we can wrap up.
Speaker: Obviously, you know, an hour is not enough time, but I think this has been incredibly valuable. and I think it gives people, like I mentioned before, some tangible things that they can do to feel like not only are you part of the process, but you're ah helping to empower other people who can be part of the process. So I'll let each of you go.
Speaker: Who wants to start? I want to do the Socratic method. And I'll call on. Oh, Clarissa, go ahead. I'll jump in. I think Peter made a really great point earlier that a lot of this can sound really confusing and can be really complicated.
Speaker: And a lot of our jobs many times is to try to make things more simple and easier to understand. And we also recognize that that is also true of the nonpartisan student voting space. There are a number of different organizations.
Speaker: Many of us work together through the coalition. But there's also a ton of resources. And I also personally am feeling it myself this year. I think there's so many different groups and so many different resources that it can be difficult to sort of navigate.
Speaker: But at the end of the day, all of us are here to be helpful in any way that we can. And Any types of resources that you might need, if any of our individual organizations might not have them, we are likely connected to other ones that do.
Speaker: So we can all also be a helpful navigator for you as as folks are looking for the information that they need for their specific campuses and communities, because the needs on every campus look incredibly different. So just want to put that out there.
Speaker: I want emphasize that we're talking about a local issue. i mean, now we're talking, we we started with the Supreme Court. We referenced an issue brief that ACE wrote, Chris's help and others.
Speaker: But if one thing is taken away from today and shared with other folks, it is that so much of the rules of the road are intensely local.
Speaker: Yes. Where's a ballot box? um What's the difference between mailing and dropping in a ballot box? What are the the challenges that Brianna mentioned about registration? They're not going to be the same from state to state.
Speaker: If I'm a resident of a particular state and I go to a public university in that state, but it's in a different county, do do i believe that I can just go vote that day in that county? Can we help them appreciate that that's not a reasonable thing to believe? Yeah.
Speaker: This stuff is local. And the folks who are joining us today that are on campuses, they need to localize their information. They need to localize their messaging. So that's that's one thing. The other thing is having been on campus for a lot of years and being in a position when you're ah a lawyer, general counsel, you see what the folks in the weeds are doing.
Speaker: And you also appreciate what the folks, if you will, in the president's office and elsewhere don't have a reason to know the details of, but they need to know at a high level what's going on.
Speaker: There ought to be no surprises for a president, for board members, and for other senior leaders about what a hard, good work that's going on in the trenches. And so those folks that are sort of the connected tissue between the people that doing this hard work, whether they be student groups or folks yeah that are getting paychecks from the university working in various offices, there ought to be a way as we approach midterms to be briefing up the chain and and And maybe politely asked a question of whether somebody is at the next board meeting that might be taking place before midterms, giving some sense of comfort to the board.
Speaker: If nothing else, you're telling the board that, hey, we know about that Higher Education Act obligation and we know about mission and this is know what we've been doing about it. All right, Bree, yep the final word.
Speaker: Yeah, yeah. If there's anything you can take from at least is my part of the conversation, I really enjoyed chatting with Michelle, Chris, and Peter, um is that two things. One, voting is ultimately about power. There were questions earlier today about motivation and they stay you know stereotypes about student voters not being apathetic. I think if you just remind students that especially in the year 2026,
Speaker: Anything that you ask them that they care about, voting it is one way to exercise that power. And that's like a very uplifting and empowering message for young people. And literally studies show that that's resonating with folks right now.
Speaker: And then secondly, students and young people have always been on the front lines and universities on the front lines ah across American history to fight for voting rights. And so when you're thinking about student voting this year, it's I encourage you when you're thinking about voter plans,
Speaker: not only how you're registering students to vote, getting them out to vote, but how what plans do you have in place to protect that right to vote? What resources are available to you locally, nationally, and in your state? What hotlines?
Speaker: And what are things that we can do as student organizers and coalition spaces to make that you all feel supported in expanding the cycle beyond just our job ending on election day, we got to make sure all those votes are counted and you know incorporating that in your education work now with students. So students don't wake up the next and they're like, wait,
Speaker: I need to track my ballot. I need to carry my ballot. What's that? Right. So, again, it's about protecting that right to vote, especially this year when there's so many different changing rules and, you know, things in the headlines. All right. i were right at one o'clock. I want to, of course, thank the three of you so much for giving of your time and also helping to inspire and remind us of like how important it is, not just individually, but for higher education generally.
Speaker: So thank you again. and I'll just ah let the folks, our participants know that we will um be sharing this recording and audio so then you can share it with your colleagues. And we have our next webinar at the end of the month. We're starting our Fellows in the Field interactive workshop series. And the first one is going to be about strategic communication for trust building and advocacy.
Speaker: So that'll be that. And then i just want to end by saying that we're focusing on voting in the midterms today, but really Voting in democracy is something that we should be thinking about every day. And so we're going to continue our programming after the election just for that reason. And we'll look forward to seeing all of you then. And thanks again.
