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Young voters are poised to be a decisive factor even as coronavirus creates obstacles

  • October 27, 2020

Kawashima-Ginsberg and colleagues have identified states and districts where young voters can have a deciding impact on presidential and congressional election outcomes. The locales include historic swing states that were crucial to Trump’s victory in 2016, like North Carolina, as well as areas that have become increasingly competitive, like Georgia.

Wisconsin is the state where youth can have the most influence in the presidential election, according to CIRCLE. Trump won the swing state by less than a percentage point in 2016, ending Wisconsin’s seven-election streak of backing Democratic candidates.

Universities have historically played a role in turning out youth voters, Kawashima-Ginsberg said. Research from Tufts found that counties with a high presence of college students played a crucial role in Wisconsin’s 2018 gubernatorial race, where Democrat Tony Evers narrowly defeated incumbent Republican Scott Walker by about one percentage point. 

With many schools using virtual or hybrid instruction this semester, student voting mobilization efforts have had to adapt. Even when students are on campus this semester, facilities are not always open in the same way, which can affect students’ ability to obtain voting requirements such as college IDs.

Wisconsin is one of the most difficult states for students studying away from home to vote, due to voter ID laws. At UW-Madison, the largest university in the state, 46% of 31,654 undergraduate students are not from Wisconsin, according to the university’s fall 2020 enrollment report.

“There are things directly related to Covid that are making it a little bit more difficult for students from out of state to exercise their right to vote here,” said Kristin Hansen, Wisconsin coordinator for non-partisan Fair Election Center’s Campus Vote Project.

Tamia Fowlkes is a junior at UW-Madison and an organizer with Badger Votes, a campus-wide initiative helping students cast their ballots in the 2020 election. She’s been leading virtual events and social media campaigns to get out the vote. While there have been significant challenges this election season, she said she has also seen an unprecedented amount of energy around voting and social issues among peers.

“As college students, we’re living in this state nine out of the 12 months of the year. The people who are making policies in the state will ultimately impact the budget that impacts our university,” Fowlkes said. “It expands beyond just what’s happening when you’re electing a president.”

With coronavirus surging in Wisconsin, voters face yet another hurdle. For students in quarantine, solutions vary. UW-Milwaukee, for example, is lining up sanitized taxis that will take students to curbside voting and back, Hansen said. Others are leaving it up to students to figure it out themselves.

Article source: https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/26/2020-election-young-voters-could-be-a-decisive-force-despite-coronavirus.html

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