How Princeton’s Vote100 encourages students to register, vote and be more civically engaged

As Election Day 2024 approaches, Princeton is nonpartisan Vote100 initiative has had a significant impact on student community involvement on campus. In less than a decade, voting registrations among Princeton students and graduates have more than doubled, thanks in large part to the program. Seventy-five percent of eligible Princeton students voted in the last general election.

On Tuesday from 6pm to midnight, Vote100 and the Whig-Cliosophic Society will host a party to view the election results in the Senate Chamber of Whig Hall. The event will feature remarks from Ron Allen, Ferris Professor of Journalism and visiting lecturer at the Humanities Council; John Londregan, professor of politics and international affairs; and Sam Wang, professor of neuroscience.

Vote100 was founded in 2015 and is run by students in collaboration with the Office of the Dean of Students (ODUS). The group’s mission is to encourage Princeton students to become more civically engaged and to get eligible undergraduate and graduate students to vote in local, state and national elections.

Carlos Ortiz (left), Whig-Cliosophic Society program coordinator in the Office of the Dean of Undergraduate Students, helps Class of 2025 member Michael Tsai (right) during a Vote100 event earlier this fall.

Anjali Brunnermeier, a Vote100 Head Fellow, said voting is essential to a healthy democracy and part of the university’s commitment to being “in service to country and in service to humanity.”

“I tell students that voting is the key to putting the issues we care about at the top of the policy agenda,” said Brunnermeier, Class of 2025. “Whether that is the curriculum implemented by a local school board or the bill passed by Congress national news headlines, our voices are powerful.”

Vote100’s work over the past nine years has included on-campus voter registration, debate watch parties, assisting students with requesting absentee ballots, arranging free rides to and from the polls in Princeton, and social media campaigns to to raise awareness of the importance of participating in elections and democratic processes.

The group’s continued efforts have helped boost registration and voting rates among Princeton students. In the 2014 midterm elections, 40% of eligible Princeton students and graduates registered to vote. During the 2022 midterm elections, the voter registration rate was 81%. In the 2020 general election this was 88%. This fall, 788 students registered via the digital platform TurboVote.

In 2020, 75% of eligible Princeton students and graduates cast ballots in the general election. That figure was higher than the national voting average for college students in 2020 and was a marked increase from the 2016 general election, when 49% of eligible Princeton students voted. (Registration and voting data are provided by Tufts University’s National Study of Learning, Voting and Engagement. 2024 data is not yet available).

Some of the colorful “swag” handed out at Vote100 events.

Vote100 and ODUS are also partnering with the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge, the New Jersey Department of State Ballot Bowl and other colleges and universities across the state to inspire more students to vote.

On September 28, Princeton hosted the New Jersey Voting Summit for the second time, bringing together students, faculty and staff from public, private and community colleges and universities. Participants shared best practices from their campuses and brainstormed creative ways to motivate their colleagues to participate in the election process. Eric Kipnis, constituent relations manager at the New Jersey Department of State, spoke to students about voting as a voter essential part of citizen engagement.

In addition to Princeton, the schools represented on September 28 were: Berkeley College, Centenary University, Mercer County Community College, Middlesex College, Montclair State University, New Jersey Institute of Technology, Ramapo College of New Jersey, Raritan Valley Community College, Rider University, Rowan University, Rutgers University-Camden, Rutgers University-Newark, Rutgers University-New Brunswick and The College of New Jersey.

“I heard from fellow student leaders about their efforts to promote community involvement among their students campuses was truly inspiring,” said Class of 2026 member Genevieve Shutt, a Vote 100 Head Fellow who spoke on a panel about student-centered engagement approaches. “We recognized common concerns and found that many of our initiatives overlap in purpose and approach, even though our campus environments differ greatly.

Additional voter information and community involvement resources are available on the website Stem100 websitethe Princeton TurboVote website and the Pace Center for Civic Engagement page for voting and active citizenship.