How Seattle colleges are activating students for the 2024 election

SEATTLE — Patti Gorman has been enthralled by politics since she was a child.

The fascination began when her parents took her with them to the ballot boxes. Her passion since has been to get young people involved with voting, a pressing issue as the 2024 presidential election approaches.

Gorman, 76, does her part by often dressing up as the Statue of Liberty at Seattle Central College. The service learning coordinator, who goes by the name “Ms. Liberty” on campus, educates students on the importance of voting in an eye-catching way.

“I do believe that if we make it fun, we’ll engage people,” Gorman said. Her attire gets people’s attention and can be a conversation starter.

“A student will say to me as I’m walking by, ‘Oh, I like your outfit.’ And I’ll turn around and I’ll say, ‘Thank you. Are you a registered voter?’ ” she said. “I’m out here come hell or high water to just really impress on people that we’ve got to stay with it and vote if we’re going to preserve our democracy.”

Ms. Liberty is a way one local college is advocating for students to get out and vote. According to U.S. census data, 48% of people ages 18 to 24 voted in the 2020 presidential election, compared with 78% of those 60 or older.

About 41 million Gen Zers, ages 18-27, will be eligible to vote in November, including 8.3 million newly eligible youth since the 2022 midterm elections, according to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement.

Voter turnout among young people is historically low in the United States. But in recent years, Gen Z has voted at higher rates than previous generations. They have great potential to influence and spur action on issues close to them, if adequately reached, according to the center.

“We have a responsibility to play a role in developing this active and informed citizenry by educating our students and motivating them to engage in our democracy,” said Fran Lo, executive director of the Community Engagement and Leadership Education Center at the University of Washington. “Not only during their time in college, but instilling this value of lifelong participation.”

The fall semester does not begin at University of Washington until Sept. 25, but members of the administration are already planning ways to engage students in voting and democratic practices, Lo said. The Community Engagement and Leadership Education Center convenes a specific group focusing on these issues called the Democracy Dawgs — a campus coalition of faculty, staff, students and community partners working to increase student voting rates and build a stronger culture of civic and democratic engagement.

Lo said the coalition was created in 2020 and has designed different ways to educate students, in a nonpartisan way, including sending emails to students reminding them to vote, making an informational website, mailing postcards to incoming students and having voter registration tables set up around campus. These efforts are likely to be repeated in the fall semester, she said.

Lo added that 76.7% of UW students who were eligible voted in the 2020 presidential election, according to an Institute for Democracy and Higher Education Report. The school is looking to increase that number in 2024.

“Voting is a habit that holds our democracy together,” Lo said. “Young people [are] the largest and most diverse generation right now. Young people have this chance to make a real impact in our communities.”

Seattle Central College also has coordinated efforts in the works, said Gorman. Gorman helps lead an effort at the college called Get Out the Vote, which educates students on voting and elections while also helping them register to vote. The organization held informational meetings, panels and more in previous years, with plans for Kahoot events, an online trivia game, and ballot box parties in the works for the fall.

Gorman added that the Washington Bus, a nonprofit organization that helps educate young Washington voters on political, voting and social justice issues through community events, plays a big role in the college’s successful voting efforts. The school has had a longtime partnership with the group and it helps with events like election pizza and ballot box parties that educate students.

Tai Yang-Abreu, the Washington Bus’ organizing manager, said much of its focus is on getting young people excited about voting and passing that enthusiasm along to their friends. This fall, the organization is planning a vote-tripling program: Each person it interacts with will be encouraged to get three other people to vote.

She trains the student government team, who have won elections on their campuses, on how to conduct pledge drives so they can get the student body to get turn out the vote.

The process, she said, empowers young voters to get their peers involved.

“You’re not just saying, ‘Hey, I’m the one [who] voted,’ but you’re taking responsibility for your friends because you’re saying, ‘I’m the person in my group that has done this before, or that is willing to learn along with friends to be responsible for bringing other people along on the path to building power for themselves and for building power for the youth movement,’” Yang-Abreu said.

The Washington Bus plans to partner again with local universities and colleges to host events encouraging voter education. The organization is currently in the process of hiring organizers across the state.

Yang-Abreu added that it is important to the organization that students are not only educated for national elections but for statewide and local elections as well. Activating one’s voice through voting is one of the most important ways a person can support the issues they care about locally, she said.

“I may feel like … the federal stuff doesn’t matter because Washington always votes a certain way. That might be right, but there’s so many local issues that affect communities much more immediately than anything that’s happening federally,” Yang-Abreu said. “And folks need to be paying attention because that’s how they start eroding your rights.”

Other higher education institutions, like South Seattle College and Seattle University, do not yet have finalized plans for engaging with students, but have ideas in the works. Ty Swenson, director of communications and marketing at South Seattle College, said in an email that the college’s student government has a long history of providing voter education and holding registration drives across campus. The student government has also hosted candidate forums in previous years.

Seattle University is also still discussing potential ideas, said Michelle Minjoe Kim, director of the school’s MOSAIC Center, via email. The new student checklist includes the optional task of registering to vote, and the university is in conversation with an external organization about coordinating a voting forum that is focused on educating students on the important issues of the election, but the details are not finalized.

“The conversations with colleagues so far have been focused on what we anticipate will be the needs of our students around the time of the election (pre and post),” Kim said. “As our political climate has become increasingly charged and polarized, and from experiencing previous election cycles, we are sensitive to the need for students (and colleagues) to have safe spaces for community and connection.”