As many of you know, I have been a librarian in higher education for my whole career. I’ve been extremely fortunate to work at Illinois State University that has Community and Civic Engagement as one of its seven core values. I’ve seen the hard work that countless people have put in to make sure that our college students learn about democracy, elections, and voting, and they register to vote.
I’ve seen this same level of commitment in the work of our Voter Services Committee who coordinate our voter information and registration events, compile our VOTE411 voter’s guide, and are present at candidate forums with fantastic partners such as WGLT and the NAACP. We have built on LWVIL’s Voter Services efforts to publicize the state law that requires high schools to share information about their students to (pre-)register to vote and offer voter registration opportunities. In recent years, our chapter has been to Bloomington High School, Normal Community High School, Regional Alternative School, and University High School. We have also collaborated with Heartland Community College, Illinois State University, and Illinois Wesleyan University’s efforts to register college students.
Evidence from political science literature demonstrates that voting is habit forming. Those who start voting tend to remain voters. So, how do we get young people to register to vote and make their ways to the polls?
Illinois State University’s Dr. Meghan Leonard surveyed ISU students to find out why they often registered to vote but may not actually vote. It wasn’t due to apathy, laziness, or other pejorative reasons, but they have anxiety about voting (source). If you haven’t done it before, voting can be overwhelming: Who are the candidates? Where do I vote? How do I vote? I’ve moved, do I need to re-register?
Please join us for our annual fall kickoff event on October 9 (more details below) where we hear from those who are trying to get our youth involved in our democracy.
Thanks,
Chad
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