Stony Brook University’s Virtual Orientation Live Sessions & Follow Up

Type of Institution: Public four-year university

Location: Stony Brook, New York

Enrollment: 26,256 students

Which students does the tactic target? 5,000+ new students each year

Which existing process is this tactic integrated into? Orientation

How it’s done:

Getting started, meet with the different offices and programs that are responsible for new student orientation experiences. Ideally, get them to include 20 minutes for voter registration as part of the required orientation. Otherwise, ask them to send regular communication to all students following their orientation experience about signing up for a voter registration live session, and highlight why it is important to attend a session.

Create a schedule of voter registration live sessions to be hosted during the orientation times of year and to be hosted by staff or students who are trained in everything about voter registration. For smaller sessions (10 or less), have 2 staff members or students to assist, one to lead and one to answer questions in the chat. For larger sessions (10 or more), have 3 assistants, one to lead and two to answer questions in the chat.

Host sessions during the week, on weekends, and at different times of day in order to meet the needs of all students.

Create a registration portal, where students can self-select a session to sign up for, and can also reschedule on their own if needed. It can be as simple as adding all of the Zoom registration links for all of your sessions to a website.

From start to end, guide students step by step through the voter registration process. Provide visual information of these steps to help students make educated and informed decisions for themselves. Encourage students to ask questions in the chat so they can best complete their application.

Have the student complete the application, print it out, and send it to their local elections office. Provide the mailing address for their local elections office, or a link to where the information can be found. Level Up: If a student does not have access to a printer, stamps, and/or envelopes, provide them with everything they need.

Keep records of all students who attended sessions, including their email addresses and, ideally, their phone numbers. A few weeks after their session, follow up with them to check online to see if their application has been processed. By following up and encouraging the student to check their voter status, you are supporting them to create a new behavior!

To learn more, contact Steven Adelson at steven.adelson@stonybrook.edu.

Kean University’s Voting Squad/Touch-Points Model

Type of Institution: Public four-year university

Location: Union, New Jersey

Enrollment: 14,056 students

Which students does the tactic target? 4,000 first year and transfer students

Which existing process is this tactic integrated into? New student orientation and universally required courses

How it’s done:

Under the direction of the Human Rights Institute, and using the When We All Vote Model, we will create voting squads who will reach out to their peers on a one-on-one/small group level to discuss the importance of voting, help them to register, review registration forms for accuracy, and mail/deliver the forms to the appropriate county offices. We will recruit five student leaders, each of whom will receive a $200 stipend. They will be responsible for recruiting, training and managing a team of 10 students each, who will receive a $100 stipend.

In our effort to Ask Every Student, we will create at least three in-person touch points where students will be asked to register to vote: New Student Orientation, GE 1000 (Transition to Kean) or GE 3000 (Transfer Transitions) and HIST 1062 (Worlds of History), which every student is required to take. Student ambassadors will visit orientation session/class, talk about why voting matters, who is eligible to vote, and how to register. They will distribute forms during that session, ask students to fill them out, collect them and review them for accuracy, giving students an opportunity to correct any mistakes that might result in their registration being denied.

In addition to these sessions, student ambassadors will hold conversations about voter registration and engagement with all students living in residence halls, participating on athletic teams, and belonging to fraternities/sororities. The Human Rights Institute will host our conference, VOTE: Human Rights in Action on September 22, 2020 (National Voter Registration Day). These small group and personal sessions will be complemented by more traditional methods, such as tabling in highly trafficked areas on campus, posters, articles in student newspapers, social media campaigns, and virtual voter registration events. Once we reach the deadline for voter registration (October 13 in New Jersey), efforts will turn to voter education and turnout, including Vote by Mail, utilizing methods similar to those outlined above. Extra focus will be placed on those groups whose voter engagement rates were lowest, based on Kean’s 2016 and 2018 NSLVE reports.

To learn more, contact Dr. Lauretta Farrell at lafarrel@kean.edu.

Clark Atlanta University’s Ask Every Student Implementation Model

Type of Institution: Private four-year college

Location: Atlanta, Georgia

Enrollment: 3,911 students

Which students does the tactic target? All students

How it’s done:

Democracy Fellows: One undergraduate student will serve as the lead for a team of five students, and all the students will be designated as Democracy Fellows. Each fellow will receive a stipend for their role in the initiative. Responsibilities of fellows include the following:

• Each fellow will be provided with a list of students enrolled at the university and will be responsible for contacting each student on their list to ask and inform about voter registration.

• Each fellow will be provided with a group of student organizations with which they will communicate regularly to build and sustain a campus coalition of organizations to support outreach efforts.

• Each fellow will participate in biweekly meetings with all fellows; on alternating weeks, fellows will meet one-on-one with the honors program director to discuss challenges, strategies, and successes.

• Fellows will serve as campus leaders at events and virtual rallies. Some fellows may be invited to participate in Zoom discussions about policy issues, voter registration and participation, and the campus-wide initiative.

 ALL IN – Ask Every Student Video Competition: Student organizations will have an opportunity to develop a short video about the importance of voting, and each video will end with the question of whether the viewer has registered to vote. Cash prizes or gift cards will be awarded to five student organizations with the most creative and potentially effective videos. Individual students will have the opportunity to submit their own videos that include information and a question for viewers about voter registration. Cash prizes will be awarded to the five students with the most creative and potentially effective videos.  

Virtual Connections: Democracy Fellows will share short videos with students through social media to build momentum for the initiative. Every registered student will be contacted either by email or within the Canvas learning management system to participate in the electoral process. A campus webpage will be dedicated to providing students and faculty with access to the following information:

• Local and state level information about voter registration processes and deadlines, 

• Information about absentee ballot guidelines and restrictions,  

• Student videos about voter participation, 

• A message from the University president encouraging students to register and to vote, and 

• Access to a virtual campus commitment card and Ask Three commitment card will be provided.

Civic Learning Integration: A voter engagement module that focuses on voter participation and civic learning will be shared with faculty. Collaboration is planned with faculty teaching First-Year Seminar and Retention and Graduation Specialists with the Center for Academic and Student Success; all first-year college students, sophomores, and transfer students will be reached through this collaboration. Instructors of upper-level courses will be encouraged to include the module in their Canvas course pages. Additionally, the voter engagement page on the CAU website will provide access to resources for students and faculty about voter registration and engagement.

To learn more, contact Teri Platt at tplatt@cau.edu.