Since the United States of America consists of a Representative Democracy, voting is an important form of civic engagement in our democratic society. However, approximately only 56% of the voting age population in the United States participates according to an NSLVE study. Statistically, older people vote at a much higher rate than the younger population does. Compared to Universities at a national level, Michigan Technological University voter participation is well below the average as you can see in the image below. Even after in increase in voter participation since the 2012 election, Michigan Tech still only had a 34.3% voting rate in the 2016 election. The voting rate for other institutions was around 50.4%. Both registration and voting rates at Michigan Tech are much lower than other institutions.
This may be caused by differences in the social norms at Michigan Tech. Michigan Tech culture is unlike a lot of other universities. Michigan Tech is not a liberal arts college, but instead focused and invested in mechanics and technology instead of the social environment that we live in or are trying to live in. Students aren’t as aware of the elections as they focus more on their schoolwork rather than politics. Michigan Tech lacks the resources to advocate for students to vote. When I walk around campus, I am not faced with “Please vote!” or “Don’t forget to vote!” signs posted everywhere I look. In fact, it is rare I see any information encouraging students to vote, why to vote, or how to vote. There are very little to none posters, emails, or political clubs on campus. Voting is not highly encouraged on Tech’s campus and the topic of upcoming elections is rarely brought up. For example, the first time I heard about the primary election coming up was in my Intro to Sociology class. We have an election in less than a week and I hadn’t even heard about it!
One way to help solve this issue is to start doing more as a university to advocate for student votes. Clubs could set up booths in the library to let students know about the upcoming election. Posters could be displayed in Fisher. Pamphlets can be placed on the dining hall tables. The administration could send out an email to encourage students to vote and giving information on how to vote without directing who to vote for. Professors could mention the election in classes amd remind students to vote. Individuals or clubs can work to put out propaganda from multiple media platforms to spread information and awareness for the upcoming elections. We need to work on making information about the election visible to students on campus. This is needed to socialize students into thinking that voting is normal and that this is what we are supposed to do. We need to work on creating into a social norm.
MTU student voter participation rates may be so much lower than the national average across participating students in the NSLVE study because of the rural location of our campus. The majority of Michigan Tech students vote absentee. As you can see in the image below, in the 2016 election, 65% of Michigan students voted by absentee method compared to only 29.3% in person.
The difficulty for students to vote may play a huge role. Many college students want to keep their home address, but don’t have enough time to go home to register to vote or to vote at the resident address on their driver’s license. Most Michigan Tech students live over 8 hours away, while the average distance away from home for other universities is only about 2 to 3 hours. Students also may not have voted because they didn’t want to vote absentee due to the old laws that required a lot of additional work. You used to have to physically hand your absentee ballot to the clerk to vote absentee for your first time in Michigan. You were also required to request your absentee ballot 45 days ahead of the election. Most students don’t even have the election on their radar at that point in time. After that process, the absentee ballot still had to come to the right address instead of your home address.
However, laws were changed in 2016 to make voting easier. You can now register to vote up until the day of an election. You can register to vote online. You can request absentee ballots up until the election date. This may have a big impact on the amount of student that vote in this year’s election.
Another policy that has been proposed to help in the voting process is to default register everyone to vote when they get their drivers license unless they choose to opt out. Registration rates at Michigan Tech are already higher than our voting rates and increasing, but still short of national average for institutions. This method will greatly increase the number of students that are registered to vote.
Another method that would help with the ease of voting (if it were allowed) would be to have a place on campus where you could register to vote before the election and even a place on campus to vote on election day. If we could have an on-campus place to vote, we would see a significant increase in voting rates as it would be seen as a norm in our institution. Another option that is easier to implement would be a shuttle running from campus to the polls throughout the day. As the ease of getting to the polls increases, it should lead to an increase in voting rates.
There are many methods we can implement in hope that the voting rates at Michigan Tech increase. After the proposals that went into effect after the 2016 election, it is now way easier for college students to vote in Michigan than before. We need to work to add voting as a normality at Michigan Tech. As of right now, millions of people don’t have a voice. This perpetuates inequalities and further concentrated power as the whole election process will become run by just the few people that have a real interest. This may not be the best for the majority of people. We need to work to spread awareness on campus in order to get students involved and to participate. We need this for our democracy to function.
NSLVE: Student Voting Rates for Michigan Technological University
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