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As the midterm elections approach, student organizations aim to boost youth voter turnout, even as the University has declined to cancel classes on Election Day.
Beginning with Texas on March 1 and ending with Delaware, New Hampshire and Rhode Island on Sept. 13, primary elections this year stretch over a seven-month period and provide a preview of the high-stakes midterms coming up in November. Most recently, New York and Florida observed the results of closely watched primaries on Aug. 23. In Florida, 25-year-old Gen-Z activist Maxwell Frost secured the Democratic nomination as his district’s representative. In the coming midterm elections, Republicans seek to regain control of one or both chambers of Congress as Democrats try to hold onto their slim majorities.
With the general election on the horizon, student groups told the News about the work they do to mobilize college-aged voters to head to the polls.
“Since 2019, Yale [College Democrats] has maintained a permanent voter engagement team dedicated to enfranchising Yalies,” said president of Yale College Democrats Kyle Mayer ’23. “This fall, all students will be able to receive absentee ballots and postage supplies at their respective college offices, free of charge.”
Mayer said he hopes to continue increasing the number of students who receive timely information about upcoming primaries, noting that the group has already reached nearly 600 students this summer alone.
Yet some initiatives to expand on-campus voting have received pushback. A Yale Votes program advocating to make Election Day a student holiday was struck down by faculty on the University’s Calendar Committee, according to the president of Yale Votes Sophie Kane ’24. Kane said that the initiative was supported by over 75 percent of students, according to a 2020 Yale College Council poll. The committee’s six members did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“College students are frequently targets of voter suppression tactics,” Kane said. “A lot of students are unable to vote in-person on Election Day in their home communities, so laws limiting early voting and absentee voting have a severe impact on student turnout.”
Yale Votes was founded in 2018 to boost Yalies’ engagement in upcoming elections, and Kane said that the organization is planning to collaborate with other student groups to promote voter participation and build voter knowledge. These initiatives will include campus-wide events, voter engagement campaigns and personalized election reminders, Kane said.
Yale’s chapter of Students Demand Action, founded by Sari Kaufman ’24 last year, is planning a campus-wide Get Out The Vote campaign in preparation for the midterm elections. Students Demand Action focuses on ending gun violence in communities across the United States.
“We need to vote for candidates who will side with public safety over the gun lobby,” Kaufman said. “Gun violence should not be seen as a partisan issue, but rather a public health issue.”
Aside from gun violence, Kaufman believes that protecting democratic institutions, reproductive health and affordable education will be priority issues for college-aged students come November. Mayer concurred, agreeing that student loans and federal protections for abortion will be important to students.
Mayer, Kane and Kaufman all said that, above all, the youth vote will be vital in this upcoming general election.
“It is critical that candidates don’t count out the young people,” Kaufman said.
General Election Day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.