Getting out the college vote: It's more crucial – and complicated – than ever
Helping students vote comes with challenges, especially amid the spate of restrictive voting measures in some states.
The midterm elections two years ago didn’t deliver the massive “red wave” Republicans were hoping for, and young voters were a big part of the reason.
Their increasing political reliability, bucking long-held perceptions, has been a clear priority for both parties in the weeks and months leading up to Tuesday’s general election. The trend could play a decisive role in the presidential contest and down-ballot races, which could determine which party has control of Congress.
College-age voters have traditionally been considered less dependable than other voting blocs. That was until 2020, after the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic and on the heels of a nationwide racial reckoning, when half of the 18- to 29-year-old voting population turned out, marking what a Tufts University analysis called “likely one of the highest rates of youth electoral participation since the voting age was lowered to 18.” Two years later, the same group of voters had a “decisive impact” in key swing-state races, Tufts also found.
In other words, young voters aren’t as fickle as they used to be. But those climbing turnout rates have come amid complications.
Since 2020, at least 30 states have enacted dozens of restrictive voting laws, 18 of which were put in place this year, according to the nonpartisan Brennan Center for Justice. Many of those measures impact college students, the bulk of whom might be unaware their universities have a legal obligation to make it easier for them to register to vote.
Though younger voters are generally more left-leaning than older ones, the antiwar protests that pervaded college campuses this year demonstrated just how frustrated many young voters are with the Democratic establishment’s approach to the war in Gaza. Some college students have allied themselves with the so-called “uncommitted movement,” which dealt a small – but not insignificant – blow to President Joe Biden’s primary victory. Polls taken before Vice President Kamala Harris entered the race showed Democrats were staring down a worrisome enthusiasm gap anchored by young voters.
Beyond the campaign, Republicans have taken umbrage with Biden administration guidance issued in February that says nonpartisan get-out-the-vote efforts qualify for federal work-study, a government program that helps lower-income college students pay tuition and fees with part-time jobs. The GOP’s frustration with the directive highlights how fearful some politicians are of the prospect of broader participation by college students in the political process.
The Harris and Trump campaigns are well aware of the newfound voting potential of young Americans, said Charles Bullock, a political science professor at the University of Georgia.
“In the toss-up states like Georgia, my sense is there’s never been such an effort to reach out to young voters,” he said.
Youth voting on the rise, shifting historic trends
As the 2020 presidential election approached, Kei Kawashima-Ginsberg was anxious. She and her colleagues at CIRCLE, a civics research center she has helped lead for the past decade at Tufts University in greater Boston, watched as pandemic closures upended primary elections that spring.
They fretted because, as they eventually wrote in a research report, “the necessary level of institutional support for student voting seemed unattainable given the other pressures facing campuses.”
Those concerns disappeared as unprecedented numbers came rolling in. The 2020 student turnout rate they eventually calculated was 66%, based on data from more than 1,000 colleges and nearly nine million students, far exceeding the 52% participation rate during the previous presidential election.
Despite the limitations of that era, the voting rate for college students finally looked more like the national voting rate.
“That was really, really high participation,” she said.
Kawashima-Ginsberg noted that it's incumbent on colleges to make voting accessible. It’s not just about encouraging civic engagement – colleges are legally required to help students vote.
In 1998, Congress almost unanimously passed legislation, signed by former President Bill Clinton, requiring schools to do more to help students vote. To remain compliant with federal law, schools must make a “good faith” effort to distribute voter registration forms, according to the American Council on Education, the main advocacy group for colleges in Washington, D.C.
“How institutions feel they can interpret that these days really seems to vary,” said Kawashima-Ginsberg.
Noncompliance with federal laws can have consequences, including loss of federal funding.
Restrictive measures impact campus voting
In addition to being a swing state that could deliver the presidency to Trump or Harris, North Carolina is among several states where restrictive measures have created additional barriers to college students casting ballots.
In 2018, the state’s legislature passed a law requiring North Carolinians to show physical ID cards to vote. The law was put on hold for several years until Republicans on the state Supreme Court allowed it to proceed in 2023.
The measure prompted confusion across college campuses in October after the North Carolina Board of Elections ruled in a case involving the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill that digital ID cards wouldn’t meet the law’s standards. Sam Hiner, a senior at UNC, said the “eleventh-hour” decision caused frustration for some students.
“That threw everything into a little bit of chaos here,” he said. “Especially with out-of-state students, it put them in quite a bind.”
College students who move to new states have a right to vote where they're attending school, legal scholars say. They don't always update their paperwork or IDs, however, which can create extra obstacles for out-of-staters to verify their identities.
There seem to be dueling efforts in some states, some making it harder for college students to vote and others broadening access to the ballot box, said Peter McDonough, the top lawyer at the American Council on Education.
McDonough emphasized that 41 states, including some hyperfocused on election security, have enacted expansive voting laws. Still, he said the harsher regulations have taken a toll.
Take Ohio: In January 2023, the state's governor, a Republican, passed a voter ID law that limited how out-of-state students can verify their identities to cast ballots. If students didn’t have a passport, military ID, Ohio driver’s license or Ohio-issued state ID card, they could be out of luck, McDonough said.
“What do you do with that?” he said. “These are the kinds of challenges students are facing.”
Beyond regulations and laws, other elements of college life keep students from voting. Young people often have hectic schedules, said Jack Lobel, the national press secretary for Voters of Tomorrow, a youth-led political advocacy group. And they're usually not as familiar as older adults with how voting works.
But this generation is different from previous ones, said Lobel, who is 20 and will vote in his first presidential election this year.
“As soon as Gen Z turned 18, we began to buck youth voter trends,” he said. “Gen Z is showing up to vote against all odds.”
Zachary Schermele is an education reporter for Paste BN. You can reach him by email at zschermele@usatoday.com. Follow him on X at @ZachSchermele.
This article has been updated to add a new video.