How Minnesota colleges are trying to drive student voter turnout

At St. Olaf, the answer is almost always yes, with nearly 90% of eligible students registered to vote, either in their home states or in Minnesota. The college's robust voter turnout team of more than 100 volunteers helped lead to the highest rates of voting of any college in the country in 2020 , but other campuses are also working to make sure students vote in this year's election.

"When you're younger, sometimes you're told that your voice isn't going to be heard," said Sophie Smith, a third-year dance and political science major who is helping lead St. Olaf's voter turnout work. "We're trying to make sure people know it's worth it."

Young Minnesotans vote at higher rates than young people almost anywhere else in the country, according to a recent Tufts University analysis , with youth vote turnout among the top three states in each of the last three national elections. But that's not solely because of Minnesota's overall high voter turnout rates. Smith and St. Olaf's two other student vote coordinators, Elijah Sonntag and Roxi Wessel, are paid by the college to organize a cadre of other student volunteers, and to coordinate on-campus voter education work. They also help students who want to vote absentee in their home states, helping them figure out what it takes to vote by mail.

Turnout drives like the one at St. Olaf are taking shape at other colleges too. At Minnesota State University-Mankato, Lily Mohr and Lili Ceballos are working to convince their fellow students to vote this year, in a program they hope will continue and expand.

"Most people are already registered to vote," Mohr observed. "Actually getting those people to go to the polls is a whole thing in and of itself."

"It was important for me to tell people who grew up the same way as me that voting exists and your voice does matter," she said. Both Mohr and Ceballos will be voting in their first presidential election, having both turned 18 just a few days after the 2020 election.

The state's colleges will likely not have an impact on statewide races, and are unlikely to swing a congressional race. But students voting in legislative and local races could make a difference, Slocum said.

Though some students have not considered voting at all or have only thought about the top of the ticket, another goal of the St. Olaf group is ginning up interest in those down-ballot races. These more local contests are ones where the student vote could make a difference, said St. Olaf political science professor Chris Chapp.

Northfield, for example, sits in the competitive Second Congressional District, which is more likely to be determined by voters in the Twin Cities suburbs than by the Carleton College and St. Olaf vote. But those college voters could have an impact on city council races, so St. Olaf has brought council candidates to campus to help students learn about their platforms.

Sonntag, a Wisconsin native, decided to vote in Minnesota this year even though his vote might have made a bigger impact in the Badger State. "You're supposed to vote where you consider home," Sonntag said, and he's become interested in the city council races and Northfield's three school funding referendums.

"People are actually pretty into it," Artley said. She noted that students are getting most of their information about the race from Instagram and TikTok, ads on YouTube and by looking at the candidates' websites.

"I think everything feels really high stakes right now," she said. "We watched 2016 happen and we watched, even down to the local levels, changes none of us would have expected."

Now able to participate in a presidential election, many for the first time, Artley said her peers are eager to apply their years of political observation to participation.

Other students who plan to vote in their hometowns are focused on local races. At St. Cloud State, art education major Erika Johnson said her classes have been talking a lot about how school board races will impact their future jobs. Johnson said school funding is one of her top issues this year, and she's looking forward to voting in a school board race in her hometown of Buffalo.

"I think they care deeply and are deeply interested but they're deeply exhausted," Chapp said of today's students. "The attitude among a lot of students is they're engaged, they're going to run out to vote," he said, but they may not be engaged beyond that because they consider politics polarizing and exhausting. "They need to compartmentalize politics."

Donald Trump and Kamala Harris will crisscross several swing states on Wednesday, passing each other in Wisconsin, where the former president is scheduled to appear in Green Bay with a onetime local icon, retired NFL quarterback Brett Favre.