Fayetteville State University students fill out their ballots at the Smith Recreation Center on March 3, 2020 in Fayetteville, North Carolina. 1,357 Democratic delegates are at stake as voters cast their ballots in 14 states and American Samoa on what is known as Super Tuesday. | Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images
In the final weeks of the presidential campaign, both parties are scouring the swing states to recruit as many voters as possible, including on college campuses. But in some of these crucial states, students are facing new barriers to casting their votes.
North Carolina election officials are enforcing a 2018 voter ID law for the first time during the November general election, following court challenges that put the law on hold. Universities across the state have already been working to ensure that students who want to vote have ID, but students found out in recent weeks that they can’t use the ubiquitous digital college IDs stored on their cell phones .
In states like Arizona, Indiana and Texas, students have expressed concern about the lack of polling places on college campuses.
And in Georgia, officials at Emory University in Atlanta wrongly gave students incorrect directions about which campus address to provide on voter registration forms, putting students at risk of having their registration challenged when voting.
Nearly 41 million Generation Z Americans are eligible to vote in the November election, according to the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, a research organization known as CIRCLE that focuses on youth. That large voting bloc could make the difference in elections that are likely to be determined by narrow margins.
But voting laws vary by state, and access varies from campus to campus for the approximately 18 million students in undergraduate and graduate programs. Add to that the complexity of last-minute changes to election laws, including an increasing number of states implementing voter ID, and that confusion could hurt participation, said Alberto Medina, a spokesman for CIRCLE, based at Tufts University.
“It is not a matter of apathy if youth turnout is low,” he said. “There is a perception that voting is easy, and that everyone should be able to figure out how to do it. And that is not the case.”
According to a CIRCLE analysis, participation in the 2020 presidential election skyrocketed to 50% among voters between the ages of 18 and 29, an increase of 11 percentage points from the 2016 presidential election.
But polling from the center shows that young people still face “formidable structural barriers” to participating in the democratic process, including a lack of civic education, neglect by political parties and candidates, and complicated logistics such as not knowing how to registering, missing deadlines or even finding transportation to a polling station.
Complications surrounding voter identification in North Carolina highlight some of these barriers, Medina said.
Confusion in North Carolina
Last month, the North Carolina Court of Appeals ruled that the digital photo ID produced by the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, “or any other ‘image of a photo ID, either as a photocopy or as a photograph on a mobile device ‘, ‘was not an acceptable form of identification for voting.
A ruling so late in the election season set off a wave of confusion across the state, as colleges that only use digital IDs had to quickly notify students of the changed rules and offer physical IDs.
To comply with the 2018 voter ID law, which went into effect last year after a lengthy legal battle, campuses were already trying to spread the word and offer free physical IDs. The court’s ruling has increased the urgency.
At Elon University, a private university 30 minutes east of Greensboro, student leaders have put up yard signs and posters and talked to classes, sororities and fraternities about how to get a free physical student ID that complies with state election law.
Bo Dalrymple, a student coordinator for the nonpartisan campus civic engagement group Elon Votes!, said the messaging campaign was necessary because many students come from out of state and do not have North Carolina driver’s licenses. In most states, students can usually choose whether to vote in their hometown or at their college, depending on their residency requirements.
“There’s a lot of confusion, there’s a lot of speculation or things you hear,” said Dalrymple, a senior majoring in political science and international and global studies from North Carolina. “One of our biggest jobs is cutting through the noise and making sure these students are informed with the right policies and rules.”
But other students in North Carolina believe the change in voter ID law was clear.
“It won’t cause any significant problems,” said Matthew Trott, chairman of the UNC College Republicans and a North Carolina native. “I honestly don’t think it’s as big a problem as it seems.”
Trott, a junior studying political science and public policy at Chapel Hill, said he has not heard any concerns from his friends or members of the College Republicans about the need to obtain a physical student ID card in order to vote; most of them only use their North Carolina driver’s license.
Earlier this month, the university released guidance on the new law, indicating that students can obtain a physical student ID card, known on campus as a UNC One Card, for free. It also directed students to the North Carolina State Board of Elections website, which lists the types of IDs approved for voting by college.
Trott said he will post on social media in the coming days to explain the early voting period and voter identification requirements. He has heard some confusion about the process of requesting absentee ballots, and he will try to address that as well.
He has raised some of these issues with students at the tailgate of former President Donald Trump’s campaign ahead of the college’s home football games this season, which have created a lot of excitement on campus, he added.
More enthusiasm nationally
That civic excitement is reflected in the polls. A recent Harvard Kennedy School survey shows that 56% of young people between the ages of 19 and 29 “definitely” plan to vote, with more enthusiasm coming from Democrats than Republicans. The percentage of expected young voters has risen 3 percentage points since Harvard’s spring poll, a rise that polls attribute to Vice President Kamala Harris’ entry into the race.
According to the Harvard poll, Harris has a 23-point lead over Trump among registered young people.
The enthusiasm is palpable at Arizona State University, said Katie Ritchie, a second-year Public Policy and Economics major.
“The presidential campaign’s messages to young people on college campuses like ASU, which are so big, have been quite strong,” she said, adding that initiatives and racial elections, such as a ballot question in Arizona that would enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution, have also increased enthusiasm.
Ritchie and Dalrymple, at Elon University, are student ambassadors for the Andrew Goodman Foundation, a nonpartisan group that promotes community engagement efforts on their college campuses. The foundation has ambassadors on 66 campuses in 20 states and the District of Columbia.
Arizona State University is one of 150 universities in battleground states that the Harris campaign has targeted to mobilize Gen Z voters. Recently, cast members of “Grey’s Anatomy” spoke on campus on behalf of the Harris campaign. Republican U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake and conservative media personality Charlie Kirk have also held events for Trump at fraternities.
At the University of Arizona in Tucson, students have complained that there will be no voting center on campus on Election Day. Although the closest voting center is close to campus — just 800 feet from the old main campus building — some students worried that could dampen turnout.
While the University of Arizona will not have a voting center on campus for Election Day, Arizona State University will have one in the fitness center on the Tempe campus, along with one on the school’s three other campuses. There are already large signs outside the fitness center encouraging students to vote early.
There have also been disputes over the placement of polling places on college campuses in other states, including Texas, where there is a tight U.S. Senate race between Republican incumbent Ted Cruz and Democratic U.S. Rep. Colin Allred.
Last month, the Tarrant County Commissioners Court rejected a Republican Party proposal to eliminate college early voting sites, including one at the University of Texas at Arlington.
“They are trying to silence the voices of the most marginalized communities, like young people,” said Claudia Yoli Ferla, executive director of MOVE Texas, a San Antonio-based advocacy group that fought to keep the polling place open on campus of more than 27,000 students.
Barriers for students are not new, said Rashawn Davis, executive director of the Andrew Goodman Foundation. Every state has work to do to make voting more inclusive for young people, he added. But he is optimistic.
“Right now we’re at a pivotal point where we’re really seeing the voices of young people taking root,” he said, “and some of these issues are starting to turn the corner.”
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