Voter engagement is always important work for the Gephardt Institution, but this year they’ve gotten creative with outreach on a grassroots level. I recently had a chance to chat (via zoom) with Lindsay Gassman, Voter Engagement Fellow at Gephardt and Staff Advisor to the student group, WashU Votes.
This year, Gephardt is trying to engage students where they already are, social media. Both the WashU Votes and Gephardt Instagram pages feature voter engagement messages and information. According to Gassman, the methods used in previous years, mostly tabling in multiple locations, were not going to be available this year. Gephardt had to find a way to “…get voting on students’ radar, while the typical in-person visual reminders were unavailable.”
The new push on Instagram is supplemented with resources, information, and FAQ answers. The WashU Votes student group found that peer-to-peer sharing gets a better overall response. They make use of DMs to send quick messages and answers to questions.
WashU Votes has also partnered with student groups to co-create voter engagement information in an effort to reach students. For example, student-athletes are extremely busy and hard to catch. WashU Votes reached out to identify a student representative on each team who would act as the go-to person for voting information. By having a student representative on each team, athletes do not have to go out of their way to find out how, when, or where to vote.
Why is voter engagement so important this year? As Gassman explained, our political policies affect our everyday lives, and they are even more important this year. The effect of our elected officials is more pronounced than ever before. Gephardt takes a “Politics 365” approach to civic engagement (calling representatives, canvassing, community engagement, etc.) as an extension of the civic action of voting. The efforts of Gephardt and WashU Votes are attempting to make it easy for everyone to fit voting into their schedule.
One of the biggest efforts this year is around ballot notarization. Because mail-in ballots must be notarized, the need is higher than ever for easy, convenient ways to find a notary. This year, more people want to vote by mail than ever before. In the spring, Gephardt worked to bring notaries to campus to help with this need. But they recognized the increased need this fall and realized that they needed a way to scale up the number of notaries available. Through increased outreach, Gephardt has now identified at least one notary in each school, and many students have stepped up to become notaries themselves. As Gassman stated, “It is incredible to see the community coming together in this way.” To connect with a notary on the Danforth campus, sign up through this portal. Those on the med campus in need of a notary can sign up here.
As in past years, WashU will be offering an on-campus polling location in the Field House of the Athletic Complex. This is a convenient resource for all undergraduate and graduate students who are St. Louis County voters, and all university employees who are St. Louis County voters and already authorized to be on campus on Election Day. Daily self-screening and face masks are required.
According to Gassman, voting is a community event. Make sure you have a voting plan in place early and invite your friends. Creating a voting plan is a new way of thinking for many people who normally just try to squeeze voting into their busy day. Gephardt and WashU Votes ask community members to plan ahead to make sure voting is a priority on (or before) November 3rd.
More voting information, including voter education videos, can be found on the Gephardt Institute’s website, or email washuvotes@wustl.edu