With the presidential election arriving in less than 30 days, voter registration efforts have been ramping up among both Contracted Independent Organizations on Grounds and organizations off Grounds. University students in an election year are faced with many choices prior to casting their ballot, including where and how to register as well as whether to vote in-person or absentee. In response, both partisan and nonpartisan groups are engaging with students and Charlottesville residents to register them to vote prior to the Oct. 15 deadline in Virginia.
With presidential election years typically experiencing higher voter turnout and registration rates — Charlottesville saw a surge of new registrants in September — the groups engaged with promoting voter registration and political involvement have also seen increased political engagement among students and residents. An estimated over eight million people have reached voting age since the 2022 midterm elections, bringing the total number of eligible Gen Z voters to 41 million.
NextGen America — a non-partisan youth voting organization that seeks to increase youth participation in elections — is one CIO on Grounds that has capitalized on political engagement during this election season to encourage students to register to vote. With branches at several universities around the country, this year the organization has mobilized in nearly twenty states, including Virginia.
Abigail Van Eerden, president of the University’s chapter of NextGen and fourth-year College student, spoke about some of the organization’s efforts in recent weeks to get students registered and more politically involved. Van Eerden said that she believes the most effective event NextGen has done this semester was tabling to register voters the morning after the presidential debate, when they were able to register twenty-seven people while tabling, higher than the usual average of 10 at other tabling events.
Van Eerden said tabling is especially fun during this presidential election year because students seem excited to register, asking the organizers questions while they are tabling such as how to request an absentee ballot and how to reregister to vote in Charlottesville.
“I think one of the most important things that NextGen does is … it gives people a way to feel like they are doing something politically effective,” Van Eerden said. “I think that’s a really empowering effect that NextGen has, just in enabling students to express their opinions through their votes.”
Van Eerden said that NextGen has also found success hosting registration events alongside the University. She said that they have recently had the opportunity to partner with University President Jim Ryan’s office to table to register voters at the “Run with Jim” event — a regular event where students have the opportunity to go for a morning run with Ryan. NextGen also previously partnered with Housing and Residence Life to host an event at the Lile-Maupin and Tuttle-Dunnington first-year dorms Oct. 4 to get first-years registered to vote.
Because NextGen is a nonpartisan organization, it is able to partner with universities to host events. Public universities may not partner with partisan organizations or politicians, per campaign finance law.
“One of my favorite things about NextGen being nonpartisan is that we’re able to connect with U.Va. as an institution,” Van Eerden said. “They can co-host events with us without looking like they’re supporting a specific party or specific set of issues.”
Van Eerden also discussed events where NextGen would be starting to engage with organizations off Grounds for the first time. She said she was excited for an upcoming informational presentation at the local chapter of the NAACP about voter registration and voting in Charlottesville.
“I’m really excited for that because that’ll be our first event where we’re reaching outside of Grounds to work with another organization,” Van Eerden said. “I do think there’s unequal access to information between [Charlottesville] locals and students at the University, and I want to do my part to minimize that gap.”
Beyond nonpartisan organizations like NextGen, politically-affiliated organizations on Grounds are also taking steps to register and turn-out voters.
Ella Nelsen, University Democrats president and fourth-year College student, spoke about some of the initiatives that her organization has been taking part in this semester. According to Nelsen, UDems not only works to register people to vote but also to campaign for Democratic candidates.
“In the fall, our main purpose is to campaign for Democratic candidates and get students registered to vote and excited to vote,” Nelsen said. “We like to get out into the Charlottesville community and knock on doors, and then also travel to swing districts because we like to go where we can have the most impact.”
Nelsen said the organization normally does voter registration drives two to three times a week in the fall, but that these drives are increasing in frequency as the Virginia voter registration deadline approaches.
Nelson also said UDems will be holding events every day starting the Friday before the election, including painting Beta Bridge and working at polling sites.
On the other side of the aisle, College Republicans have also been active in organizing phone banks and door knocking. According to their Instagram, the University chapter mobilized the most volunteers of any CR chapter in the country at one of their door-knocking events in Albemarle County.
But voter registration is a bipartisan endeavor, and the CRs participated in a joint tabling session with UDems Oct. 8 on South Lawn. The event was organized by Hoos Vote — an organization under the Center for Politics that focuses on registering student voters.
Keshav Vermani, student lead for voter registration at Hoos Vote and third-year College student who was at the tabling event, said that there is bipartisan support for increasing voter registration and that everybody should exercise their right to vote.
“It kind of shows this level of unity on campus, that even those differing ideologies can still get along and promote the idea of civic engagement,” Vermani said.
After registering to vote, students still must choose how to cast their ballot. Most first-year students are voting for the first time this year. For these students and for many others, navigating the different ways to vote in their home area can be a challenge.
First-year Education student Sara Roman said she will be voting by mail for her home district in Atlanta. Roman said she has voted before in a local election, but that this will be her first time voting in a national election, and her first time using a mail-in ballot.
She voiced her enthusiasm to vote and said she has seen a variety of different resources at the University, such as people coming to her classes to explain the voting process.
“I get asked several times a day if I am registered to vote, so I think if I really needed help, I could 100 percent get it,” Roman said. “I’m excited to vote, I’m glad to be part of something [where] I get to have input.”
Students are faced with differing laws and requirements for voting absentee, depending on their home state. States such as Texas and Louisiana require voters to present a valid reason to be eligible to receive a mail-in ballot. Qualifications in these states include being 65 years or older and being temporarily absent from your precinct, such as due to attending school elsewhere. In Louisiana, students must submit a copy of their student ID with their application to prove their eligibility.
Because of these eligibility requirements that some states implement, other students are finding difficulties translating their voter registration into an actual vote. First-year College student Halston Fedorowicz said she was also planning on voting absentee, but that Texas, her home state, rejected her application to vote by mail.
She will not be able to vote early in-person when she returns home over fall break because early voting does not begin until Oct. 21 in Texas.
Fedorowicz said she filled out an application for an absentee ballot in the summer, and that she had believed she had completed it properly. She said that in-person voting is relatively easy where she is from, compared to the absentee process that she thought was more difficult.
“I don’t know how I’m going to figure out how to fix it,” Fedorowicz said. “I think absentee voting is a little bit harder.”
On the other hand, all registered voters in Virginia are eligible to vote via mail-in ballot regardless of reason. Additionally, eight states and the District of Columbia automatically send mail-in ballots to all registered voters which they may or may not choose to use.
Although the last day to register to vote before Election Day in Virginia is Oct. 15, same-day registration on Election Day Nov. 5 is an option for those that do not meet this deadline. Early voting is underway in Virginia and ends Nov. 2.
Those unsure if they are registered to vote can check their status and explore other voting options at vote.gov. Virginia residents may also check their status and register to vote on the Virginia Department of Elections website.
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