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The 2020 Election Comes to Campus: Student Citizenship and Civic Engagement
Sep 15 2020
Organizer: Bipartisan Policy Center
Colleges and universities are places where students can learn to be civic leaders. Yet data suggests that college students turn out to vote less often than older cohorts. Many Generation Z students are eager to engage with the democratic process and are taking steps to promote civic literacy and voter turnout in their communities, even amidst the challenges of COVID-19 and a remote or partially-remote fall semester.
Join us this Constitution Day as we hear from student leaders and other experts about their efforts to foster a thriving democracy from our nation's college and university campuses.
Location: Webinar
Jeff Swensen/Getty Images
Students at Penn State University line up to vote in the 2016 presidential election.
Most college students are concerned about the legitimacy of the election
Aug 25 2020
While most college students say they plan to vote this fall, they also lack confidence in the legitimacy of the 2020 election, a recent poll found.
The survey, released Monday by the Knight Foundation, details election concerns and voting preferences of Americans ages 18-24. Seven in 10 college students said they are "absolutely certain" they will vote in the general election, but they also pointed to concerns about how it will be conducted and fairness in the results.
Young people are a powerful, but often unreliable, voting bloc. In surveys, they are enthusiastic about participating in elections, but in reality, many find the voting process confusing or face barriers when trying to cast their ballot.
<p>The November election "has not inspired an abundant feeling of confidence among college students," the poll found. Nearly half of those surveyed (49 percent) believe the election will not be conducted fairly, but even more (55 percent) think it won't be administered well.</p>
<p>The top issues that would lead young people to have major doubts about the legitimacy of the 2020 election are long lines or malfunctioning machinery at polling places (50 percent), foreign interference (48 percent), low voter turnout (46 percent) and the winner of the election losing the popular vote (46 percent).</p>
<p><p style="text-align: center;" id="sufn"><a style="font-weight: bold;margin:40px auto;font-size:2rem" href="https://thefulcrum.us/st/newsletters">Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter </a></p></p><p>College students also indicated they are disenchanted with the American political system. For instance, 81 percent think special interests have more influence over election outcomes than voters do. And less than two-fifths of young people believe the federal government works to improve the lives of people like them.</p>
<p>Most students agree that one way to improve elections is to do away with the Electoral College. More than two-thirds said they would prefer the president be elected by popular vote.</p>
<p>College students are evenly split on whether they think voting in the presidential election will be easy. More than six in 10 say they need more practical knowledge in order to become more politically involved. Previous polls have also shown young people often <a href="https://thefulcrum.us/voting/vote-by-mail-2646872681" target="_self">lack voting resources or guidance</a>, especially when it comes to voting by mail.</p>
<p>A majority of students (53 percent) plan on casting their ballot by mail this fall, and 29 percent intend to vote in person on Election Day. Another 9 percent say they'll vote early and in person.</p>
<p>While two-thirds of the students surveyed said they would vote for Democratic nominee Joe Biden, neither Biden nor President Trump were viewed favorably by a majority of people.</p>
<p>The Knight Foundation surveyed 4,000 undergraduate students at four-year colleges or universities across the country between Aug. 9-12. The margin of error is 2 percentage points.</p>
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Civic Ed
True
Klaus Vedfelt/Getty Images
Three quarters of Generation Z cite social media as the preferred platform to receive information.
A perfect '20 storm: Lack of both civic engagement and media literacy
Aug 21 2020
Farrell is the co-founder and CEO of Bites Media, a news and information company targeted to educators and students in middle and high school.
<p>Generation Z will be the largest generation in the history of our country. About 24 million first-time voters — or 10 percent of the total electorate — will be eligible to cast ballots in the upcoming presidential election. This young generation is also the most racially diverse our country has seen, with 48 percent <a href="https://www.pewsocialtrends.org/essay/on-the-cusp-of-adulthood-and-facing-an-uncertain-future-what-we-know-about-gen-z-so-far/" target="_blank">identifying as races</a> other than white.</p><p>Young adults are digitally native and consume information exponentially differently than previous generations, with 75 percent <a href="https://www.commonsensemedia.org/about-us/news/press-releases/new-survey-reveals-teens-get-their-news-from-social-media-and-youtube" target="_blank">citing social media </a>as the preferred platform to receive information. But while Gen Zers are more socially engaged than prior generations, there remains a lack of strong civic and media literacy education that should be driving these budding citizens to engage with our democracy.</p><p>If we want to build America's young adults into the next generation of civic leaders, we need to focus on how we can provide the foundation they need to address issues today and in the future.</p><p><p style="text-align: center;" id="sufn"><a style="font-weight: bold;margin:40px auto;font-size:2rem" href="https://thefulcrum.us/st/newsletters">Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter </a></p></p><p>"Too many Americans lack an understanding of basic elements of their government and governing principles," a <a href="https://csreports.aspeninstitute.org/documents/Knight2019.pdf" target="_blank">study last year</a> by the Knight Foundation and the Aspen Institute concluded. Moreover, "Technology is providing access to so much information — and disinformation — that it is overwhelming individuals' ability to determine what is true, especially in the absence of widespread digital literacy." </p><p>Never before has there been more information available at the tip of our fingers, yet Americans feel less informed than ever. Consumption habits have also changed: Teens are no longer reading trustworthy periodical sources on a daily basis, notably. This is highlighted by the fact that 69 percent of teens trust that traditional news sources will get the facts right, yet only 30 percent are engaged with those sources.</p><p>Furthermore, civics education has long been a forgotten area of the curriculum. State requirements for civics vary state to state, an approach that arguably is failing our students as only 24 percent of them reached the standard of "proficient" in <a href="https://thefulcrum.us/civic-ed/8th-graders-civics" target="_self">the government's most recent</a> National Assessment for Educational Progress.</p><p>The takeaway from this failure is not one of curriculum, but a lack of focus on teaching students how to draw connections between what they learn in civics classes and the information they consume about current events — in other words, the news.</p><p>The solution to civic and news disengagement is to focus on context. </p><p>With so much information available online and much of that information being regularly questioned, informational context or background knowledge has emerged as essential. It should be the responsibility of new and traditional media companies alike to engage meaningfully in <a href="https://www.brookings.edu/blog/fixgov/2016/02/29/explanatory-journalism-a-tool-in-the-war-against-polarization-and-dysfunction/" target="_blank">explanatory journalism</a> along with their investigative journalistic efforts. </p><p>The problem with breaking news cycles or exclusively investigatory efforts is that they seldom contextualize information for nonperiodic readers, listeners or viewers so those people might better navigate the importance and scope of these stories. Increased comprehension through explanatory journalism, and the confidence it leads to, will ultimately aid efforts to drive stronger civic participation by empowering one of the critical needs of our democracy: informed citizens.</p><p>There is a desperate need to provide a better media and news source that fills the gap created by the failure of traditional news and civic education across the country. Look no further than this year's wave of protests over racial equality. These issues are certainly not simple, and the response to them is nuanced and complex. But we cannot expect the same solutions and education process to solve systemic problems when it comes to our democratic process. </p><p>News is an informational tool and should be considered as such. We need to get back to the educational heart of the news. Remember: 14 million young adults are able to vote for the first time this year. Even if only three out of every five of them turn out, they are positioned to decide the outcome of the presidential election.</p><p>So the time to fill the trustworthy news void is now.</p>
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A poll found more than three-quarters of people under 35 are motivated to vote in this year's election.
Poll: Young people want to vote by mail, but don't know how to do it
Aug 04 2020
Young people are more inclined than ever to vote by mail in this year's election, but a new poll shows a majority of them lack the resources and knowledge to do so.
In light of the coronavirus pandemic, half the states have already adjusted their general election plans to emphasize mail-in voting or otherwise make casting ballots easier and safer. But a poll, released last week by the progressive youth voter engagement group NextGen America, indicates a significant lack of familiarity with the absentee voting process among voters younger than 35.
The survey is the latest indication that an optimistic expectation which surfaces every four years — the leaders of tomorrow are finally going to turn out in great numbers and cast the decisive votes for president — may be dashed once again.
<p>That's because fewer than half of those surveyed know what they need to do to vote absentee (47 percent) or were familiar with their state's vote-by-mail deadlines (42 percent). And only narrow majorities indicated they had ready access to a printer (54 percent) or to a booklet of stamps (52 percent).</p><p><p style="text-align: center;" id="sufn"><a style="font-weight: bold;margin:40px auto;font-size:2rem" href="https://thefulcrum.us/st/newsletters">Sign up for The Fulcrum newsletter </a></p></p><p>An <a href="https://www.npr.org/2020/07/13/889751095/signed-sealed-undelivered-thousands-of-mail-in-ballots-rejected-for-tardiness" target="_blank">NPR analysis</a> of mail voting in this year's primaries found at least 65,000 ballots were rejected because they arrived too late. First-time voters, especially ones who are young, Black or Latino, are more likely to have their ballots rejected due to delayed arrival or another error.</p><p>Despite these issues and lack of clear instruction, more Americans are planning to vote by mail this fall. Only 5 percent of those surveyed said they voted absentee in 2016, but nearly two-fifths said they would mail in their ballots this fall. Most still plan on voting in person, though, either early (18 percent) or on Election Day (36 percent).</p><p>Regardless of preferred voting method, 77 percent of young people said they are more motivated to vote in the 2020 election than any other election in their lifetime.</p><p>Young voters have expressed similar passion to pollsters in the past, but that has not translated to actual ballot casting. Turnout among those younger than 30 was 46 percent four years ago — when overall turnout was 56 percent of those eligible.</p><p>To capitalize on this enthusiasm now, NextGen America is conducting massive voter outreach to encourage participation in the general election and inform young people about the voting process. A week ago the group organized the first-ever National Vote By Mail Day, using its volunteer network to text absentee voting information to 3.7 million people across 11 states.</p><p>NextGen was founded in 2013 by billionaire Tom Steyer, who ran a largely self-funded but unsuccessful Democratic presidential campaign. The organization was initially focused on climate activism, but has pivoted its primary focus to promoting youth voter engagement.</p><p>The need for better youth voter education was also made apparent in a <a href="https://thefulcrum.us/big-picture/young-voters-2020" target="_self">June poll</a> by election researchers at Tufts University's Tisch College, which reported that one-third of young people didn't know whether they could register to vote online. (Online voter registration is permitted in <a href="https://thefulcrum.us/voting/coronavirus-impact-on-voter-registration" target="_self">all but nine states</a>.)</p><p>For the NextGen poll, 1,001 young people were interviewed over nine days ending July 22. The margin of sampling error was 3 points.</p>
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