Students prepare voting plans in midterm elections
With the help of Yale Votes, students send in absentee ballots and prepare to vote in-person.
Zoe Berg, Senior Photographer
On Tuesday, Nov. 8, the polls will open for voters for the 2022 midterms. The election will decide which party will control the House and Senate for the remainder of President Joe Biden’s term.
Students have the option to vote in the Connecticut elections or to vote absentee in their home state. For students who have trouble with voting, Yale Votes, a student-run organization on campus, provides Yalies non-partisan help with navigating how to vote on campus — whether in-person or absentee.
“College students are frequently the target of voter suppression tactics,” President of Yale Votes Sophie Kane ’24 wrote to the News. “Voting in college presents a number of unique challenges — it’s not always evident how to request or return an absentee ballot, where to receive mail on campus, how to switch your registration from your home state to New Haven or how to vote as an on-campus versus off-campus student. That’s where we come in.”
On Election Day, Yale Votes is hosting a table on Cross Campus to help students with any questions they have on Election Day, including Election Day Registration. Students can use that process if they have not yet voted in another state.
They will also host walking groups to the polls at 10:30 a.m., 12:30 p.m. and 5 p.m. departing from Cross Campus.
“Our strategy is always to reach students where they are,” Kane wrote. “This means attempting to reach students in a range of different ways including via in-person events and table-ing, textbanks, email campaigns, social media campaigns and partnerships with other campus organizations.”
According to Yale Votes’ Saybrook Voting Ambassador Roy Kohavi ’26, turnout among Yale students is relatively low due to voter apathy and confusion about how to vote out-of-state.
The News spoke to 10 students about their voting plans for the midterms. Seven of them said they were voting in this election, while three said they were not voting either because of complications getting ballots or voter apathy.
“I am voting because my voice, my freedoms and my opinions matter as does every other citizens’,” Marlissa Archie ’26, who voted by mail in Arkansas, said. “This is my first time to vote absentee, so navigating that process while being so far from home and with college obligations was a little stress-inducing at first, but with help from Yale resources and friends who were facing a similar situation the process became much easier.”
Absentee voting
For most students to vote in their home state, they would need to vote by absentee ballot. Depending on the state, students would have needed to submit their application up to three weeks before the election and they must be postmarked or received by Election Day.
In 2020, Yale started to allow students to mail their absentee ballots to their residential college. Yale College students can also print their forms and get stamps and envelopes for free in their Head of College office, according to Assistant Vice President for University Life Pilar Montalvo.
“Allowing students to receive and send their absentee ballots from their Head of College Office is critically important,” Montalvo wrote in an email to the News. “Many states require absentee ballots to be submitted by mail. Also, not all Yale College students have mailboxes or an actual street address. Using the Head of College Office address means that they can still participate in the voting process.”
Despite this, some Yale students faced several challenges with accessing absentee ballots.
In some states, rules for absentee ballots are stricter and deadlines vary across the country. Also, voting by mail can take quite a long time and multiple rounds of mail, Kohavi said.
“It is hard to track ballots often and the fact that voting by mail in most states involves requesting an absentee ballot by mail means that voters have to go through the mailing system twice in order to vote in a single election,” Kohavi said. “That takes time. Furthermore, some states make it even harder for first-time voters who need to register to vote in person.”
Several students have experienced problems with voting by mail, like Michelle Lee ’26, who is registered to vote in Maryland.
In Maryland, absentee ballots only have to be postmarked before Election Day, but the absentee ballot application deadline was due Nov. 1, which she did not know about.
“I thought it lasted so close to Election Day and I feel like a lot of this is on me,” Lee said. “I tried to register in October but the site said my information was invalid, so I thought I would try later. It was just easier to vote in-person.”
Voting in Connecticut
If students missed their home state’s deadline for absentee voting, they can instead vote in Connecticut, which allows same-day voter registration. It is legal for citizens to be registered to vote in two states, as long as they do not vote in both states in the same election.
“Since voting by mail can be very difficult, many students should know we are all eligible to vote in Connecticut,” Kohavi said. “We can even register on Election Day itself. This is a great option for those who missed the absentee deadlines in their home states.”
Voting in Connecticut does still have its difficulties. Connecticut is one of only four states to not have early voting — which is on the ballot this year. Kohavi said the absence of early voting can cause longer lines at the polls and stress, which can cause some people to give up.
Election Day is also not a holiday at the University, so all classes still run that day.
“I was thinking about voting in Connecticut instead of Maryland, but the lines sound really frustrating and it honestly discourages me from actually trying to register to vote here in the first place,” Lee said. “It would be helpful to allocate a day so we could all engage in democracy. Right now, it’s my only option and I really want to vote, but I have classes.”
On the ballot for New Haven voters are Gov. Ned Lamont, Sen. Richard Blumenthal and Rep. Rosa DeLauro (CT-3), who are all running for reelection.
Future elections
After Tuesday, Yale Votes will sponsor other initiatives for upcoming elections like making Election Day a university holiday, as Columbia University did; establishing a civic engagement center on campus; integrating voter education into first-year orientation and creating paid voter outreach student jobs.
This semester, Yale Votes launched the pilot program Saybrook Votes, a 10-day competition to encourage voter participation. Although less than half of Saybrook students reported that they were registered to vote, Yale Votes hopes to expand the competition across Yale College in the future.
In addition, Montalvo has helped to connect Yale Votes, which works with primarily undergraduate students, with the heads of the Graduate Student Assembly and the Graduate and Professional Student Senate to expand their outreach with graduate and professional students.
Also after Election Day, Yale Votes will hold a reflection event at the Afro-American Cultural Center to assess the broader state of our democracy and discuss ways to continue to engage civically in meaningful ways.
“We’re always working with Yale administration to make voting more accessible to all students,” Kane wrote. “We hope that all of our initiatives will reduce barriers to voting for students, but we are always looking for ways to make further improvements to campus voting.”
Polls open in Connecticut at 6 a.m.