Making National Voter Registration Day a Course Assignment

Making National Voter Registration Day a Course Assignment

By Thessalia Merivaki, Mississippi State University

For college students, registering to vote is particularly complicated as many study either out of state or in a jurisdiction different than where their parents reside. Voter registration outreach often is conducted on the ground by political campaigns and advocacy groups, which are limited in scope and often do not yield high registration success rates (Merivaki 2020). Researchers have found, however, that peer-to-peer voter outreach on college campuses (Ulbig and Waggener 2011) and voter registration training in the classroom can be instrumental in getting college students successfully registered and in turning out to vote on Election Day (Bennion and Nickerson 2021).