Carlos Ortiz (left), Whig-Cliosophic Society program coordinator in the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students, helps Class of 2025 member Michael Tsai (right) at a Vote100 event earlier this fall.
Election 2024: How Princeton's Vote100 encourages students to register, vote and be more civically engaged
As Election Day 2024 approaches, Princeton’s nonpartisan Vote100 initiative has made a significant impact on student civic engagement on campus. In less than a decade, voting registration rates among Princeton undergraduate and graduate students more than doubled largely thanks to the program. Seventy-five percent of eligible Princeton students voted in the last general election.
On Tuesday from 6 p.m. to midnight, Vote100 and the Whig-Cliosophic Society will host an election results watch party in the Whig Hall Senate Chamber. The event will feature remarks by Ron Allen, Ferris Professor of Journalism and a visiting lecturer in the Humanities Council; John Londregan, professor of politics and international affairs; and Sam Wang, professor of neuroscience.
Established in 2015, Vote100 is led by students in collaboration with the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students (ODUS). The group’s mission is to encourage Princeton students to become more civically engaged, and to get eligible undergraduate and graduate students to vote in local, state and national elections.
Anjali Brunnermeier, a Vote100 Head Fellow, said voting is essential to a healthy democracy and is part of the University’s commitment to be “in the nation’s service and the service of humanity.”
“I tell students that voting is the key to seeing the issues we care about put at the forefront of the policy agenda,” said Brunnermeier, Class of 2025. “Whether that be the curriculum implemented by a local school board or the congressional bill in national news headlines, our voices are powerful.”
Vote100’s work over the last nine years includes campus voter registration drives, debate watch parties, assisting students with requesting absentee ballots, arranging free rides to and from the polls in Princeton, and social media campaigns to raise awareness about the importance of participating in elections and democratic processes.
The group’s sustained efforts have helped increase registration and voting rates among Princeton students. In the 2014 midterm elections, 40% of eligible Princeton undergraduate and graduate students registered to vote. In the 2022 midterms, the registration rate for eligible voters stood at 81%. It was 88% in the 2020 general election. This fall, 788 students registered through the TurboVote digital platform.
In 2020, 75% of eligible Princeton undergraduate and graduate students cast ballots in the general election. That figure was higher than the national voting average for college students in 2020 and was a marked increase from the 2016 general election when 49% of eligible Princeton students voted. (Registration and voting data is provided by Tufts University's National Study of Learning, Voting and Engagement. Data from 2024 is not yet available).
Some of the colorful "swag" given out at Vote100 events.
Vote100 and ODUS have also partnered with the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge, the New Jersey Department of State's Ballot Bowl, and other colleges and universities in the state to inspire more students to vote.
On Sept. 28, Princeton for the second time hosted the New Jersey Voting Summit that brought together students, faculty and staff from public, private and community colleges and universities. Participants shared best practices from their campuses and brainstormed creative ways to motivate their peers to participate in the electoral process. Eric Kipnis, manager of constituent relations at the New Jersey Department of State, spoke to students about voting as an essential part of civic engagement.
In addition to Princeton, the schools represented at the Sept. 28 event were: Berkeley College, Centenary University, Mercer County Community College, Middlesex College, Montclair State University, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Ramapo College of New Jersey, Raritan Valley Community College, Rider University, Rowan University, Rutgers University-Camden, Rutgers University-Newark, Rutgers University-New Brunswick and The College of New Jersey.
“Hearing from fellow student leaders about their efforts to foster civic engagement on their campuses was truly inspiring,” said Class of 2026 member Genevieve Shutt, a Vote 100 Head Fellow who spoke on a panel about student-centered engagement approaches. “We recognized common concerns and found that many of our initiatives overlap in purpose and approach, even if our campus environments differ greatly.”
Additional voter information and civic engagement resources are available on the Vote100 website, the Princeton TurboVote website and the Pace Center for Civic Engagement’s voting and active citizenship page.
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On Sept. 28, Princeton hosted the New Jersey Votes Summit to bring together students, faculty and staff from public and private colleges and universities across the state to share best practices for engaging students on their campuses to vote.
