Vanderbilt Student Government announced its joint nonpartisan initiative with the 15 other student governments in the Southeastern Conference to increase civic engagement among students.
This initiative is the first of its kind and comes after Tennessee implemented new laws impacting voter registration in the upcoming elections. Students from out of state must now complete a paper voter registration form in order to vote in Tennessee.
SEC voter registration initiative
The civic engagement campaign of the SEC student governments was created during the annual summer SEC exchange, in which all 16 student governments come together to share ideas to improve their institutions. The new initiative aims to “enhance voter registration awareness and civic engagement,” according to a statement signed by the student body presidents of each school and shared on Instagram.
To fulfill VSG’s part in the initiative and increase its reach among students, VSG President senior Hananeel Morinville said the organization will be collaborating with various student organizations.
“We’ve built a strong relationship with The Women’s Center, Vandy Votes and Vanderbilt’s Department of Government and Community Relations,” Morinville said. “We’re able to host different events such as a luncheon with the Government and Community Relations, table with Vandy Votes or the Women’s Center, and we plan on sending out a special voting edition newsletter.”
Morniville said the initiative aligns with her goals as president by helping resolve the lack of engagement between SEC student governments she has witnessed in the past.
“At SEC Exchange, one thing that nearly all president’s expressed was the lack of collaboration in past years and we were determined to change that,” Morinville said. “This initiative allows us to build relationships on campus while also better fostering our relationship with the other SEC schools.”
President of Vandy Votes, junior Ochuwa Garuba, expressed appreciation for her organization’s partnership with VSG.
“Hananeel [Morniville] has been a great partner in trying to broaden our reach as Vandy Votes, which historically has been a bit of a smaller organization,” Garuba said.
In collaboration with the All In Campus Democracy Challenge — a program that aims to increase nonpartisan democratic engagement on college campuses — VSG and Vandy Votes will promote an SEC votes athletic challenge, aiming to increase voter turnout among student athletes.
“We’ve worked with a lot of different groups, but I think one group that’s been left out by and not just us, but by a lot of organizations, is athletics, and so we are working super hard this year to make sure that all athletes are registered to vote,” Garuba said. “We tabled for Athletic’s Welcome Back Event the first week of school, and we’ve been speaking with some of the student athlete leaders and also some of their staff to make sure that we are extending a hand wherever we can.”
Updates to Tennessee voter registration laws
Tennessee has adopted 36 election-related bills so far in 2024, the most of any state. Among these changes students who do not have a Tennessee ID now must complete the voter registration form on paper and mail it in to the county election commission, a process previously done online. The deadline to complete registration to vote is October 7.
Kayla Jones, president of the Tennessee Democracy Network, shared how she believes the change will impact first time voter participation.
“[When] students are not able to easily register to vote online because they may not already have a signature uploaded into the state system, it becomes a deterrent to people voting,” Jones said. “There’s no guidance about what the next step needs to be for them.”
One of the resources previously available was a guide with information for college students on how to vote, however, according to Garuba it was removed over the summer from the Tennessee Secretary of State’s website. Garuba said this, along with poor publicization of the paper registration form, have both contributed to a lack of knowledge about the voter registration process among students.
“The confusion, misinformation [and] disinformation — in terms of how students register to vote — and the fact that every state functions very differently in terms of their voter registration laws creates a lack of voter turnout,” Jones said. “[Additionally] if you’re out of state and you’re trying to use something like TurboVote, which is basically Vanderbilt’s platform for registering students to vote, you’d likely face challenges with that.”
First-year Ava Cashman revealed that her decision to vote absentee resulted from obstacles with residency requirements in Tennessee’s voter registration process.
“I wish the process was simpler for college students to vote with their dorm address in Tennessee,” Cashman said. “When talking to students that go to college in states like North Carolina, the process for out of state students to register seems much simpler.”
Vanderbilt College Democrats and Vanderbilt College Republicans did not immediately respond to The Hustler’s request for comment.
