Major elections are normally prime time for college campuses to recruit new voters, but COVID-19 has been an unforeseen obstacle for the traditionally in-person effort.
“Because of COVID we haven't been able to do things in person which kind of handicaps us a little bit,” said Kaylon Bradford, director of Student Leadership and Involvement (SLI) at the University of Memphis.
Most in-person activities at the UofM have been cancelled in the wake of the pandemic, including SLI’s usual methods for engaging students politically such as booths and registration tables. But Bradford said the coronavirus won’t stop SLI from keeping up its work on social media.
“It's easy to say, well, we normally set up registration tables, or we host an event or program and we can't do that this year. So, oh well. We didn't do that," he said.
SLI has continued to connect the campus community this semester through electronic flyers, sample ballots and calls to action sent out via Twitter, Instagram and Facebook. Bradford said the amount of likes and reposts on their online content suggests students are fired up to vote.
“A lot of people have negative things to say about this generation of students, as it relates to being engaged," he said. "But I have found that there's a significant amount of students, particularly in the Memphis community, that want to volunteer, that want to leave their legacy behind, that want to impact other folks.”
Of course, not every organization on campus has been able to adjust their activities so well to COVID-19. Sam Jennings, president of the University of Memphis College Republicans, said his group was unable to continue any of their usual voter registration functions, such as staffing information tables or inviting candidates to speak on campus.
“The pandemic has really thrown a wrench in helping people register to vote,” he said.
However, Jennings said social media has been driving political fervor since even before the coronavirus outbreak.
“I think social media is probably 75 percent of the reason of why younger people care about the election this time, than they did in previous elections. People who traditionally would not sit there and watch the news or read the news are now being immersed with the news through social media just because their friends might share something, or it might trend on Twitter.”
A recent poll by the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School found that 63% of Americans ages 18 to 29 say they’ll vote in this year’s election, a substantial increase from the 47% who said they’d do so during the 2016 election.
Olivia Waterton, Electorate Outreach Chair of the Rhodes College Democrats, said it isn’t just a matter of bombarding people with information online.
“Instead of sending out mass blast emails, which we still do, I think there's been a shift to focus on this, the sort of like interpersonal relationships,” she said.
Waterton encourages students to start conversations about voting within their friend circles. As time consuming as it may be to tailor messages to specific individuals, she said students ultimately respond more to a personal touch than to a mass e-mail.
“It’s so basic, but it works," she said. "The strategy is text your friends, but with a purpose and the purpose is getting them to vote.”
Many first-time voters, like Waterton, were in high school when the last presidential election took place. But the outcome of that election could be why many young people are more aware of their civic responsibility.
“That in and of itself has been a pretty powerful motivator, you know, a sense of powerlessness, watching people who are older than us make decisions for us, that they won't have to deal with,” she said.
Waterton said she’s not just voting because it’s the American way, but because she’s actually worried.
“Everyone talks about, you know, voting being the cornerstone of our democracy and, one of your most sacred, civil duties," she said. "But at this point in time, everything is so broken, that it seems like the bare minimum.”
And with Election Day just around the corner, the ballots of motivated youth like Waterton could just be what swing some states red or blue.
Caleb J. Suggs is a radio news intern with the Institute for Public Service Reporting at the University of Memphis.
