As Election Day approaches, groups on campus set out to increase the number of UC Irvine students registered to vote. One effort is POL SCI 100, created by political science professor Matthew Beckmann and UCI political science students who hope to get 100% of political science majors to cast a ballot.
In 2020, UCI students’ voter turnout and registration rates were the highest among all UC campuses, with 99% of students registered to vote and an 85% turnout rate.
POL SCI 100 is unique from other UCI voter registration efforts because it targets political science students, rather than the entire student body. According to Beckmann, a more intimate outreach network can be effective in its own way.
“The idea is partly, these things, the most effective communication is when people in your own networks are reaching out to you person to person,” Beckmann told New University. “So we have students connecting with other students, me connecting with our majors, students can email me [and] students can email other students, so we’ve kind of really tried to make it focus on a constituency that has already ties and relationships to make.”
Findings from authors Donald Green and Alan Gerber in their book “Get Out the Vote! How to Increase Voter Turnout” suggest that personal communication with potential voters is the most effective way to get them to participate in elections.
The Political Science Student Executive Committee, a group of around 50 students organized by Beckmann this fall, started this initiative as the first of many events and projects that they are planning for political science students this year. Some of these students divided themselves into three subgroups to run the initiative.
The turnout team is in charge of event organization, the information team coordinates social media posts while gathering voter resources and the registration team assists prospective voters with registering. Each subgroup is made up of around 12 students.
The POL SCI 100 initiative and committee are designed to engage political science students with what they learn in the classroom.
“The big idea was [that] we should practice what we teach, which is [that] democracy is really important,” Beckmann said. “It depends on people taking initiative, it depends on people being engaged, it depends on people being informed, and so we should model that by kind of doing the things that we think are important.”
To provide accessible and credible information, the initiative emailed students about registration resources, information about candidates and ballot propositions, event announcements, reminders about registration and voting deadlines, and offers of personal help with navigating registration or voting.
The group is hosting a parade on Nov. 4 where students are invited to collectively walk from the Social Sciences Plaza to the UCI Ballot Drop-Off box, followed by a pre-election party for faculty and students.
“[It’s] kind of an intersection between voter advocacy and fostering that community at UCI,” Roxanne Martin, committee member and second-year political science student, told New University.
UCI’s Voting Centers, the Student Center and University Hills Community Center, will be open from 8 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Nov. 2-4 and from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m. on Nov. 5.
Mariam Farag is a Features Intern for the fall 2024 quarter. She can be reached at msfarag@uci.edu.