Republican-led legislatures in a number of U.S. states, from Indiana to Oklahoma, are contemplating imposing restrictions on early voting, from shortening the variety of days to tightening ID necessities for voters.
Florida, in contrast, affords a number of instruments to extend voting entry, together with for younger folks – a traditionally low-turnout group. Floridians might preregister to vote at age 16 and request vote-by-mail ballots with no justification wanted. And beginning in 2018, Florida election officers started providing in-person early-voting websites on school and college campuses after a federal decide nullified a 2014 rule barring greater training amenities from serving as early-voting websites.
I’m a lecturer of political science who research American political growth and public legislation, and my analysis means that increasing on-campus early-voting websites can increase turnout in U.S. elections by making voting extra handy – not just for college students however for residents of surrounding communities too.
Campus voting is in style
I’ve been monitoring votes forged at on-campus early-voting websites in Florida since 2018. The info reveals these voting websites are more and more in style.
My analysis reveals that 59,205 votes had been forged throughout 12 Florida campuses internet hosting early-voting websites in 2018. That quantity elevated to 92,344 at 11 areas in 2020 and jumped once more – by about 50,000 votes – through the 2024 election.
Throughout 14 days of early voting in October and November 2024, 142,085 Floridians forged ballots throughout 16 on-campus early-voting websites throughout the state. One-quarter of them – 35,245 voters – took benefit of three campus websites in Miami-Dade County, the state’s most populous county.
A 2019 research by the Andrew Goodman Basis, a nonprofit selling youth participation in democracy, decided that total voter turnout in Florida elevated through the 2018 election, as compared with earlier midterm elections, partly “due to the added convenience” of on-campus voting.
Better entry to in-person early voting additionally will increase the probability of an individual’s poll counting, since mail-in ballots are typically rejected at greater charges than in-person votes.
Who votes on campus?
On-campus early voting makes elections extra accessible for all voters.
My knowledge from 2024 reveals that 35% of voters at Florida’s 16 on-campus early-voting websites had been registered Democrats and 32% had been registered Republicans. The remaining 33% registered with minor events or had no occasion affiliation.
These outcomes differ from voter registration knowledge from 2024 in Florida, which reveals 40% of registered voters as Republicans, 31% as Democrats and 29% as different. That’s to be anticipated, as a result of research of on-campus early voters in Florida discover that these voters are youthful and extra various than these at different polling locations.
Each college students and native residents might vote at on-campus polling websites in Florida.
A 2019 report from the Andrew Goodman Basis discovered “Hispanic and Black voters disproportionately cast ballots” at campus areas alongside college-age voters. It additionally mentioned that 56% of early voters at campus websites had been below age 30.
Variations in occasion turnout at tracked websites, then, might replicate the upper share of Gen Z voters registered as Democrats or with no occasion affiliation.
Obstacles to voting entry
Earlier than casting a poll, voters face 4 selections. First, whether or not to register to vote. Second, whether or not to vote in an election. Third, methods to vote: early in-person, vote-by-mail or on Election Day. Fourth, whom or what to vote for.
Turnout charges amongst younger voters range broadly throughout states, however in states the place on-campus voting areas are frequent – comparable to Arizona, Florida and North Carolina – youth turnout tends to be greater.
Within the 2024 election, folks ages 18 to 29 represented 14% of total Florida voters – roughly on par with their proportion of the state’s inhabitants. It’s troublesome to make a direct comparability between the voting age inhabitants and voter turnout charges due to voter eligibility guidelines.
However, for reference, 18-to-29-year-olds made up 14% of voters in Texas in 2024, too – but are estimated to be practically 17% of the inhabitants.
The College of Pittsburgh hosted on-campus voting within the 2024 common election.
Aaron Jackendoff/SOPA Photos/LightRocket by way of Getty Photos
A number of states have guidelines seemingly designed to hinder younger folks from voting. After the 2020 election, Ohio handed a legislation making it tougher for out-of-state college students to vote by limiting the paperwork voters might use to show their residency. Information from the Campus Vote Challenge reveals a number of states, together with Texas, Iowa and Missouri, don’t settle for pupil IDs as legitimate identification to vote. Oklahoma is at the moment contemplating comparable laws.
Whereas turnout charges replicate many elements, together with the recognition of the candidates, low voter turnout is usually related to elevated problem in casting a poll.
Florida reveals that school campuses play an necessary position in growing entry to voting, not only for college students however for residents within the surrounding communities, too. Almost 3% of the 5.4 million individuals who voted early in individual statewide in 2024 forged their poll at a campus polling web site, up from 2.2% in 2018.
Marketing campaign indicators outdoors the College of Florida’s J. Wayne Reitz Union through the 2018 common election.
Stephen C. Phillips
Election officers, college leaders and lawmakers know that having on-campus early-voting websites is a profitable methodology for participating voters. As one first-time voter at York Technical School in South Carolina advised South Carolina Public Radio in 2024, the handy location “definitely encourages me to vote.”
Throughout the nation, from Iowa to Texas, many faculties and election officers host early on-campus voting.
Elsewhere, nevertheless, state and native legal guidelines, or selections by native officers, stop many campuses from internet hosting polling websites.
For instance, Ohio limits the variety of early-voting websites to at least one per county. That meant that, in 2024, Ohio State College had no campus early-voting websites, and for its college students the closest place to vote in individual was about 6 miles (10 kilometers) away.
In South Carolina, although some campuses do host polling websites, the college the place I educate, Clemson, doesn’t. In 2024, college students needed to journey 4 miles to achieve the closest in-person early-voting location in Pickens County.
A current research discovered that lengthy distances and journey occasions to polling areas represent “a barrier to voting.” And college students, as a inhabitants, usually have notably restricted entry to transportation.
Additional research will present extra exactly how on-campus early voting expands the voter universe. However my vote monitoring and different new analysis offers some clues, suggesting that early in-person voting on campus will increase early voting and diversifies the voters.
Increasing on-campus early voting, then, is not only about comfort. It’s about empowering the following era of voters and strengthening democracy.