Chasing the College Student Vote

Nearly from infancy, millennials have been told their vote matters and the impact of their participation in the democratic process. Many of these now-college students accompanied their parents to the polls, wore the “I voted” sticker on their jackets before they could barely walk, and participated in mock-elections in their K-12 education. Now, they’re being bombarded via social media and on their college campus by student-run organizations and political campaigns during election season because, if mobilized, this generation has the power to sway elections in either direction.

But even with these efforts from childhood on, Kathleen Dolan, the chair of the Political Science department at UW-Milwaukee, does not have high hopes for college student voter turnout.

“Eighteen to 25-year-olds are the least likely people to vote in the United States,” she said. “So when we look at voter turnout, and we can slice-and-dice-it by race, by age, by sex, by all sorts of things, we know from many, many, many, many, many years of data that young people are the least likely to vote.”

Mobilization has been a hot word as political campaigns and non-partisan organizations attempt to get millennials to the polls. Voter turnout for millennials has upswing in recent presidential elections: In the 2012 presidential election, 19-percent of the votes cast were from voters aged between 18 and 25, and that was a one-percent increase from the 2008 election. But for off-year elections, like this year’s gubernatorial race, the number of votes cast by voters in this age range typically plummets.

“One problem is in part because they are at such a mobile time of their lives,” Dolan said. “Government doesn’t really directly affect what they’re doing every day of their lives: They’re probably either in college or starting work careers, not thinking about home ownership, schools, taxes and social security – and a lot of those sorts of things connect people to politics and cause them to be interested in voting.”

Students for each respective party banded together on college campuses across Wisconsin, hoping to divert the trend of low voter turnout during midterm elections and push students to the polls, especially for tight races, like the ones for governor and attorney general.

“On campus, we’re doing a lot of tabling,” Austin Kieler, sophomore and the chair of the College Democrats at UWM, said. “We’ll stand in Spaight’s Plaza and hand out literature, talking about the election to students. We also canvass, talking to people living around campus face-to-face, because talking face-to-face is the most effective way to get voters to the polls.”

Students involved with the College Democrats at UWM were highly visible during the stretch before Election Day, tabling in high traffic areas in the Student Union up to four times a week. When students weren’t able to spread the word about challenger Mary Burke and her campaign, they lent the space to community organizations that were registering students to vote.

But while the College Democrats were seen nearly every day, representation from the other side of the aisle felt nearly invisible – until just weeks before Election Day, when Tyler Bundies, a junior at UWM, helped restart the dormant organization.

“We live in a country blessed with a multi-party system where different viewpoints and voices can be heard,” Bundies, the chair of the College Republicans at UWM, said. “A lot of students aren’t quite aware of what’s happening in the political realm and how it affects them in the long run.”

Restarting this organization gives another dimension to the political landscape at UWM, but Dolan says she is not surprised by the struggles both organizations face with staying active on campus and furthering the political conversation.

“The other thing people think about with young people is ‘why aren’t college campuses a place we can mobilize voters?’ and ‘why can’t we get young people?’” she said. “The problem is then also mobility, because people come to a college campus with ‘tuition keeps going up!’ and ‘the governor’s not hearing your voice!’ and all those sorts of things. But then those people graduate, and you have to start all over again with another group of people.”

Starting all over is what Bundies has faced with the College Republicans at UWM. But even as they picked up steam in the race to the finish line, the organization was not as visible as their counterparts in the Student Union; they started off tabling once a week on Tuesdays, and in the final stretched, bumped it up to twice a week.

“We do some of the activities that College Republicans statewide do, like campaigning on the weekends or in the evenings, but we understand that school always does come first,” Bundies said. “Students staying on top of their education is a priority, and if they have free time, then coming in and mobilizing voters.”

That hot word, mobilization, has been the focus for both sides of the aisle, as both Kieler and Bundies attempted to ignite political awareness amongst their peers and the campus community.

“Everyone, students especially, need to realize that voting is the most fundamental right of the people in this country,” Kieler said. “It directly gives a way to voice opinion son things and change our future, and students don’t understand the importance of that. Rich, poor, black, white, young, old – we all have the same power when it comes to voting, and that’s incredible.”

“Every single vote does count,” Bundies said. “In my personal opinion, I want students to be voting no matter whom they’re voting for. We have the blessing to live in a country where every voice is heard, and that’s not a right every citizen in every country gets.”

Kieler says that voting is important because it equalizes the playing field.

“Most people, especially students, don’t vote because they’re frustrated with government and with politics,” he said. “The complaints are that there is too much money in politics, or that big corporations have too much power, things like that, but that’s why voting is so important. Corporations can’t buy more votes, they can try as hard as they can, but every individual citizen can only have one vote.”

And going into Election Day, both were hopeful that their mobilization efforts made an impact.

“If everyone went out and used that vote,” Kieler said, “we’re going to elect the people who are going to work for us.”

College Democrats spread the word on campus in the morning and then, Kieler said, they would be helping out at the polls in non-partisan clothing, to make sure everyone who was eligible to vote had the opportunity to do so.

Meanwhile, Bundies and the College Republicans were focused on campus, tabling in the union and trying to motivate students to cast their ballots.

“That’s our main part of Election Day,” he said, “getting out that vote, getting students to the polls, and having their voices heard.”

But despite both their best efforts, students did not crowd the polls, and the stagnant trend of students voting in midterm election continues. Nationwide, 18 to 25-year-olds made up approximately 13 percent of the electorate: six percentage points below the presidential election in 2012.

Dolan is not surprised.

“We know the people that vote in midterm elections are different than people that vote in presidential elections, and that they tend to favor Republicans,” she said. “So if you go back to 2006 and 2010 here in Wisconsin, the voters were more conservative, they were older, they were more out-state, and they were more Republican than the voters in 2008 and 2012.”

She says Democrats face issues with turnout because the people they got excited for presidential elections simply go home in off years. Republicans, on the other hand, have more characteristics that motivate voter turnout on a consistent basis because of how they’re distributed among the population.

Both Kieler and Bundies say they are proud of the work they did this election season with their respective student organizations. Bundies says he’s disappointed with the turnout of his peers, and looking forward to 2016, he’s taking a realistic approach for voter turnout.

“A hope, yes,” he said, when asked about increased voter turnout in future elections, “but do I expect it? Not necessarily.”