We need student vote rock stars. We need student vote coalitions even more.
The ALL IN Action Plan Report shows how institutional buy-in and collaboration are vital to growing the student vote.
This is the fourth in a series of State of the Student Vote updates about the progress colleges and universities are making in planning for the 2024 election based on the findings in the ALL IN Action Plan Report - here are links to Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
In Part 3 of our 2023 Action Plan series we examined commonalities among the campuses that completed a 2020 democratic engagement action plan, but failed to do so again in 2022. One of our most important conclusions was that campuses with less supportive campus contexts are the ones most in danger of backsliding on student voting institutionalization. Three characteristics we saw among those that dropped off in 2022:
Less time in an action planning program: The campuses that backslid in their democratic engagement action planning had participated in ALL IN’s action planning program for about a year less on average than the rest of the action plan submitting campuses.
Smaller institutions: The campuses that backslid were more likely to be smaller institutions - they had an average student body enrollment of 7,830 - compared to a total average of 10,158 for all campuses participating in ALL IN and an average of 13,573 among campuses that submitted action plans in both 2020 and 2022.
Limited support from the college or university president: The 128 institutions that backslid in 2022 were also less likely to have public support for their democratic engagement program from their college or university presidents through the ALL IN presidents' commitment and were more likely to have experienced significant staff turnover.
A campus’s completion of a democratic engagement action plan over multiple election cycles is arguably the best measurement we have for student democratic engagement institutionalization - especially given the fact that there’s a clear relationship between action planning and higher student voter participation. Once we accept this premise and dive into the numbers, a clear pattern emerges:
The more people who are accountable for student voter engagement at a given institution, the more consistent student voter engagement efforts are across multiple election cycles.
This holds true whether they are accountable to the highest levels of leadership at the institution, or to efforts and organizations led by staff members and students. In total, 56% of ALL IN campuses submitted an action plan in 2022. However:
80% of campuses whose presidents signed ALL IN’s Presidents’ Commitment submitted action plans.
Of the 31% of campuses that included a leadership succession plan in their 2022 action plan, 86% signed the Presidents’ Commitment.
88% of campuses with a student voting coalition known to ALL IN submitted action plans.
90% of campuses that listed both a primary and secondary campus contact with ALL IN submitted a 2022 action plan.
Among campuses that have a known student voting coalition AND listed a secondary contact, 98% submitted action plans in 2022.
The numbers demonstrate that when student voter engagement moves beyond the purview of just one person, campuses are far more likely to institutionalize the practice. Campuses where only one person is responsible for student voter engagement - whether as part of their official or unofficial capacity - are less likely to carry out engagement practices to begin with, and less likely to sustain them over the long term.
Campuses need to be intentional and inclusive when forming the teams responsible for student voter engagement. There are tools to help with that.
Ensuring that the collaborations responsible for student voter engagement are fully representative of the campus community helps ensure that the gains made over multiple action planning cycles are equitable and sustainable. Appropriately, this has been a major theme in the nonpartisan student voter engagement this year, as various groups have come out with research and resources to help facilitate the creation of a strong and equitable student vote coalition:
The fourth edition of the Strengthening American Democracy Guide provides core guiding questions to facilitate the assembly of a representative and effective leadership team in order to create an impactful student democratic engagement action plan.
ALL IN is set to release an update to the Student Voting Group Report, which outlines how to start, grow, and sustain a student-led nonpartisan voting group.
The SLSV Coalition’s Transition Management Working Group put together a suite of resources to aid campuses in sustaining nonpartisan voting coalition efforts through personnel transitions.
The SLSV Coalition and ALL IN’s Local Election Official and Campus Voter Engagement One-Pagers, which outline steps and strategies to create a strong working relationship between student vote leaders and local election officials who often face unique challenges in serving campuses within their jurisdictions.
The upshot: Student voter engagement is a team sport, and the time to start forming these teams is now.
Voter engagement on college campuses will surely ramp up throughout 2024 in the run-up to the presidential election. But waiting until election season heats up would likely shortchange the process of forming an effective coalition and voter engagement action plan. According to ALL IN:
Most campuses that join ALL IN take about a year before they create their first action plan, which ideally would be finalized at least six months before the campus’s next election.
In other words, this is groundwork necessary for effective and equitable student voter engagement - so it has to get done before the engagement itself if efforts are to succeed. And intentional and inclusive action planning that reflects the diversity of the campus community takes time. Plan accordingly.