Corn and Civic Engagement: National Voter Registration Day in Iowa

Events, Fellows, News, Voter Registration 0 Comments

Iowa Campuses engaged student voters in many unique ways on National Voter Registration Day. There are 13 CEEP Fellows at 9 different campuses who all hosted their own events, and many other campuses also used NVRD materials to register voters. Samantha Bayne, our Iowa Director, personally visited three very different campuses: University of Iowa in Iowa City, Kirkwood Community College in Iowa City, and Coe College in Cedar Rapids. There, she was able to experience different methods of engaging students at a large public institution, a community college, and a small, private liberal arts school. Early estimates of total college students registered on NVRD total about 700 students — even with rain pushing most events inside! Students truly took advantage of this day to directly connect with their peers and share resources on how to vote in this year’s midterm elections, which are very competitive in Iowa.

Meet the CEEP Fellows at University of Iowa! Catie, Lucee, and Caitlyn have been working incredibly hard to engage students around campus. They tabled at the #HawkTheVote NVRD event with a “Cast Your Kernels” activity where students could place a popcorn kernel in a mason jar as a “vote” for a particular candidate. This event as a whole registered about 200 students.

Volunteers at Coe College — Meet our volunteers at Coe College! They tabled and clipboarded in front of their cafeteria, which is effective since about 90% of students live on campus. At this event, they had a system set up to check if voters were already registered, to register voters either on campus or help them register at home, and to fill out absentee ballots for any state in the country. First-years were some of the lead volunteers at this event.

This is Candice, our CEEP Fellow at Kirkwood Community College. She clipboarded in the Student Center and registered many first-time voters. Kirkwood Community College is a member of The Democracy Commitment and received a grant to host a party at the polls. Candice is very excited to be working on the ground to create long-term infrastructure at Kirkwood.

Jocelyn and Connor of the University of Iowa Student Government have worked incredibly hard over the last few months to create a sustainable, effective campaign to register voters. They have been working with CEEP to create a brand that students will easily identify with: #HawkTheVote. They are now working on ways to continue promoting voter engagement on campus and to transition to GOTV over the next couple of weeks.