OSU Votes’ informational table in front of Curl Market to provide voting resources to students, as seen Tuesday. Credit: Mariam Abaza | Lantern Reporter
With Election Day fast approaching, OSU Votes is ramping up efforts to get students informed so they know how and where to cast their ballots.
OSU Votes is a student-led nonpartisan organization that aims to foster civic engagement on campus. Its members provide information and resources directed at increasing voter registration and turnout among Ohio State students, according to its website.
Jill Clark, a professor at the John Glenn College of Public Affairs, said it is common for students to pay more attention to politics during presidential — as opposed to local — elections.
Since OSU Votes encourages participation across elections of all scales, Meagen Rinard — OSU Votes’ assistant director of community and civic engagement — said the organization is increasing its efforts during this time of the year so students who pay attention now are given the resources they need to be incentivized to remain active during future, smaller elections.
“Our mission is to provide a nonpartisan resource for students to get voter education on everything from voter registration to day-of voting practices to civic engagement at large,” Rinard said.
Rinard said this initiative aligns closely with one of Ohio State’s core values.
“For us, it’s really important to get every student civically engaged to help fulfill Ohio State’s mission: education for citizenship,” Rinard said.
Beyond voting, students can contribute to the university’s mission by staying informed about political activities occurring on campus and in the broader community, said Jill Clark, a professor at the John Glenn College of Public Affairs.
“Become comfortable and media literate by knowing how to get information and just staying abreast of what is happening,” Clark said.
OSU Votes works to provide this information to students through its campus-tabling presence, which has increased in the leadup to the presidential election, Rinard said.
“We’ve been really trying to reach as far and wide as we can across voters,” Rinard said.
These efforts have proved successful in previous years, with Ohio State students having a higher voting turnout rate than the national average.
According to the Institute for Democracy and Higher Education’s 2020 Student Voting Rates report for Ohio State, the 2020 national voting rate among college students was 66%. In that election, Ohio State had a reported voting rate of 75%, nine percentage points higher than the national average.
Researchers have also noticed an emerging trend in younger voters’ turnout compared to their older counterparts, Clark said.
“Overall, starting with Generation X, there was a decline in political engagement that followed into Generation Y — the millennials,” Clark said. “Some of the research is suggesting that Generation Z is changing that tide in terms of voting.”
According to the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement at Tufts University, 28.4% of people ages 18 to 24 — members of Generation Z — cast a ballot in 2022’s midterm election, which is “significantly higher than the 23% of Millennials who voted in 2006 and 23.5% of Gen Xers who voted in 1990, when each generation first made up the whole of that age group.”
Rinard said this increase is also visible on Ohio State’s campus, as OSU Votes intentionally works to target the younger generation.
“One of the ways we have been able to see that increase is making sure that students are informed of what they need to do,” Rinard said. “It can seem daunting, and being able to make that process a little more seamless for students is our goal.”
This year — for the first time in the university’s history — classes will be asynchronous on Election Day to encourage students to vote, per prior Lantern reporting. Rinard said she hopes this will provide students with the necessary flexibility to vote in the election, thereby increasing voter turnout from previous years.
As students prepare to vote Tuesday, Clark said she urges them to stay civically active beyond the quadrennial occasion.
“If young people participated more, they wouldn’t just be hit up every four years,” Clark said. “Presidential campaigns would not be the only time that suddenly young people are figuring into the real workings of how this country is run. If they participated more, they would have to be contended with on a regular basis.”
In addition to voter registration and resources, there are other ways students can be engaged in the public sphere, Clark said. These include joining organizations that align with students’ passions, engaging in conversations with people who hold different ideological views and staying up-to-date on current events.
“Voting is indirect engagement by voting for someone else to represent you,” Clark said. “In between those indirect engagement opportunities, you have lots of ways to directly engage in the issues that you care about.”
OSU Votes promotes civic engagement among students in various ways outside of providing voting materials, such as lectures on community organizing, according to its website.
“Our goal is just to provide resources and information so every student on campus is able to engage in civic process in whatever way makes the most sense for them, whether it’s by voting, or running for public office or just engaging in different ways on campus,” Rinard said.
Many students on campus cannot vote in Ohio due to out-of-state status, immigration status or multiple other factors, Clark said. However, civic engagement can take on several forms, from joining clubs based around personal passions to protesting for causes that students care about, Clark said.
“We have a lot of students here on campus that aren’t able to vote, and I think their engagement is just as important,” Clark said.
As students prepare for the election, they can access nonpartisan resources through OSU Votes’ website.
“Our resources exist, and we are a one-stop shop,” Rinard said.
