According to a national 2020 Tufts University study, only 66% of eligible college students voted in the 2020 presidential election. While this rate was quite low four years ago, it has the potential to increase this year due to universities’ efforts in voter education and engagement. With the 2024 presidential election quickly approaching, one student organization that has been preparing student voters through education and outreach at Colgate University is the Colgate Vote Project. The Colgate Vote Project (CVP) is a nonpartisan student organization whose goal is to engage with students through election season events.
Senior Lily Spinner works alongside the Max A. Shacknai Center for Outreach, Volunteerism, and Education (COVE) as one of their civic engagement interns. Spinner described the main goals of CVP’s important work on campus.
“CVP is a volunteer-based group, and they host events such as voter registration drives and campus tabling to register student voters,” Spinner said. “They also work alongside the civic engagement interns to create plans for voter education and registration across campus.”
The Colgate Vote Project has a voter registration table at O’Connor Campus Center (the Coop) once a week, visits first-year seminar (FSEM) classes and hosts brown bag discussions — events with guest speakers and food — as well as election night watch parties.
Brown bag discussions often collaborate with other clubs and departments on campus where professors can be guest speakers. The most recent brown bag discussion was in collaboration with the environmental studies department and covered the climate change stakes of this election, specifically the environmental strategies proposed by both Vice President Harris and former President Trump. Brown bag discussions in past semesters covered polarization and voter suppression.
This election year is another critical year for the CVP’s involvement on campus. Senior Georgette Manos, a COVE civic engagement intern and CVP member, shared that the CVP was able to host a series of events tailored specifically to the upcoming election.
“We hosted a presidential and vice presidential debate party, collaborated with Haven on tabling as well as vote for equality, registered students on National Voter Registration Day [and] worked with [Colgate University President Brian W. Casey] to create media coverage for the vote video on Instagram,” Manos said.
Furthermore, the CVP trained Community Leaders (CLs) on campus about voting and voter registration and plans to host an election night party in the Hall of Presidents on Election Day.
Junior Ciara Sanders, a team leader of the CVP, emphasized the importance of voting each year, not just during presidential races.
“It’s important to vote always, whether that be in the presidential election or midterm,” Sanders said. “Our main goal is to get people engaged and encourage people to vote, whether that be in the presidential elections, their state elections and midterm elections.”
The CVP hopes to help solve a critical issue in America: voter education. Through efforts like tabling, the club hopes to educate Colgate students about the registration process.
“I think that we do a very bad job of voter education in America,” Sanders said. “I registered to vote as soon as I turned 18, but I know a lot of people […] may not have a background [in] civic education so it’s very hard to understand the steps to registration. I think our main goal is to get people educated about the process so we can bridge that gap of civic education.”
Reach out to [email protected] to join the Colgate Vote Project, with questions about voting in the 2024 election, issues with mail-in ballots or any other questions.
