S4E11 – Connecting with College Voters with Eddy Zerbe from the Students Learn Students Vote Coalition
High Turnout Wide Margins recently traveled to the 40th annual Election Center conference in Salt Lake City, Utah, and spoke with election administrations and officials from across the county about how they do the work of elections in their communities.
In this episode, hosts Eric Fey and Brianna Lennon speak with Eddy Zerbe. He’s the deputy director of the Students Learn Students Vote Coalition, which works to engage college-aged voters.
They spoke about some of the barriers that college-aged and first-time voters commonly face and how election administrators can work directly with students to educate and empower them to use their vote.
You can find many of the reports and guides mentioned in this episode – here: https://slsvcoalition.org/resource-library/
High Turnout, Wide Margins Credits:
Managing Editor: Rebecca Smith
Managing Producer: Aaron Hay
Associate Producer: Katie Quinn
Digital Producer: Mark Johnson
Transcription of the episode is as follows:
Eddy Zerbe: There's a couple common threads that are keeping students from voting – part of that is just like an information gap, part of it is just students don't always know that there are local and state elections and that there's elections like every single year. Sometimes, especially when they're not in November, it's even harder for them to kind of recognize that things are going on, and some of that is part of an almost, like, an agency gap of sorts, where maybe students don't directly translate or see the connection of their vote to local issues that have a – that are affecting their everyday life.
[High Turnout Wide Margins Introduction]
Brianna Lennon: Welcome back to another exciting episode of High Turnout Wide Margins. My name is Brianna Lennon. I am one of the hosts. I am the County Clerk for Boone County, Missouri. I'm here with my co-host –
Eric Fey: Eric Fey, Director of Elections in St. Louis County, Missouri.
Brianna Lennon: And we're really excited to talk to our guest today.
Eddy Zebre: I am Eddy Zerby. I'm the Deputy Director at the Students Learn Students Vote Coalition.
Brianna Lennon: So, we are at the Election Center 40th Annual conference and wanted to talk a little bit about how – well, so Boone County is a college town, and so, I think it's really important to talk about how we connect with our college voters and the particular set of challenges that come with having a population that is constantly moving around – not just the area that they live in for college, but also bouncing back and forth sometimes between their home county and where they go to school. So, we are excited to talk about that, but first, we always have to ask our first question, which is how did you get your start in elections?
Eddy Zebre: Yeah, of course. So, like I said, I am Eddy Zebre, Students Learn Students Vote Coalition. A little background about the organization – because I think it definitely ties into my story, as well – we are the largest non-partisan coalition in the US dedicated to advancing the college student vote. And we do that through a couple of different ways, but essentially, we're a national coalition, right? And so, we work with about 300 organizations around the country. It could be election offices, it could be nonprofit organizations, but it's also a lot of college students and a lot of college staff, a lot of college faculty members, and they're a part of the coalition. Altogether we have a reach of more than 1,300 campuses across the country, and what we do is we run different programs to support their work. We try to make it as easy as possible for them to, you know, engage college students and make it easy for them to participate.
I got my start in college organizing and youth organizing. So, I grew up in San Antonio, Texas, and I remember when I went to college at University of Texas in San Antonio – seeing that there was just a really great opportunity there to mobilize students and make a difference. I mean, we were seeing city council races with, like, 4% turnout or something, right? And I saw that there was an opportunity for UTSA students to really mobilize and make a difference in their elections. And so, I helped start up an organization called Move Texas, which is a 501c3 non-partisan organization dedicated to mobilizing youth to vote, and we started seeing a difference. We started seeing city councilors reach out to UTSA to try to, you know, show up on campus and make sure that UTSA students knew who they were and who they were going to be voting on in the next couple of years, etc. And, sure enough, that organization ended up making, and still makes, a really big splash in state politics, as well.
I eventually, kind of, left Texas, started working with other non-partisan organizations in DC. Now I'm in New York. So, whether it was with a civil rights organization or an organization that worked to mobilize voters through sports, I've always been on the non-partisan side of things. And I think it's just so important to do that because I just think it's the most authentic way to do it. I really feel it's – that's when it's, you're really able to focus on the impact that people are making, and view it more as an educational and an empowerment tool – voting that is – instead of trying to come at them with an agenda, right? And so, I've always been in the non-partisan train, and, like I said, now I ended up now at full circle back at college and youth organizing with the SLSV Coalition.
Brianna Lennon: The first question that I wanted to ask you about the organization is really kind about the methods that you all use because in our own kind of voter education and trying to get students interested and excited about voting, it is really difficult because we can't talk about anything related to what's on the ballot. We can't talk about motivators to come out to vote. I would love to know what you found to be some of the more effective ways to get college students to participate, especially in local races, because they do directly affect students. But, it can be hard to find the thread that really connects to why a college student should care about a city or a county that they don't necessarily know very much about if they're not from there, and why it's important to vote?
Eddy Zebre: No, that's a great question. Well, I'm here kind of wearing two different hats today. One of those hats – we run a program called National Voter Education Week that did a lot of work on this and has a lot of materials online to be able to easily mobilize first-time voters, student voters, etc. But what we learned earlier this year – we put out a report on mobilizing students to vote for local and state elections, and what we learned through that report is that there's a couple, like, common threads that are keeping students from voting – part of that is just like an information gap, part of it is just students don't always know that there are local and state elections and that there's elections every single year. Sometimes, especially when they're not in November, it's even harder for them to kind of recognize that things are going on, and some of that is part of an almost like, an agency gap of sorts where maybe students don't directly translate or see the connection of their vote to local issues that are affecting their everyday life.
And so, a lot of what we put out and our guidance for this year for folks mobilizing students to vote are very much around – one, just keeping it simple and it's just reminders. Just making sure students know that there are upcoming elections and they're aware of the right deadlines to be able to participate, etc. Students, specifically, tend to really vote, you know, ahead of Election Day, early voting. We really try to emphasize that so that they can, you know, schedule voting into their own agenda, into their own timeline, into their own calendar. And so, part of it is just really uplifting that – the different ways they have to vote and how easy it can be.
The other part is how it can make an impact. It's difficult – a lot of our guidance is around connecting local issues to the things they care about, also about how local and state politicians have a say on national issues that are getting a lot of attention right now. So, when you're not able to focus on the issues or connect it – really what we talk about is the agency, right? So, being able to focus on races that, like, one vote did make a really big difference, right? And you can point to a lot of local and state elections over the last couple of years where that has happened, right? Literally, state control of a legislature coming down to like a coin flip.
We also point to the power that a campus community has together and how students tapping into that campus makes them a really powerful force that makes people pay attention.
The other two things that we like to emphasize is, that in local and state years, for folks trying to mobilize students – it's a really good year to get candidates face time with students, you know, when a candidate is running like for a city council, it's going to be a lot easier to get them to an event or something just to say “Hi,” and when students feel invited, they feel like they matter because a candidate is literally right there asking them to vote. That's just really, really exciting for them, and I think something that can get them engaged.
And the last thing I'll say is just, like, different partnerships and collaborations. I think local election years are opportunities to experiment, try new things, try to see how to make voting a little bit more fun, a little bit more accessible, and those things can definitely make a big difference.
Eric Fey: What are the largest barriers that your organization has found students run into?
Eddy Zebre: I mean, generally speaking, students, like I said, they're – students, and first time voters, in general, they really tend to overestimate how difficult voting is or can be and underestimate their own knowledge of issues and how much they can make a difference. And so, when you put those two things together, you're working against structural barriers and psychological barriers to be able to get voters out. So, we have a lot of resources on being able to make voting a lot easier, right? So, emphasizing things like early voting, emphasizing things like voter registration deadlines.
A lot of the barriers that students have to participate is just, it really deals with just the availability of voting and the deadlines associated with them and missing them, right? And so, being able to just nail those down, make sure that students have those in mind, and make sure that students continuously see that that always really, really helps.
I think the other barrier that we sometimes see is with the agency of it, right? Underestimating their own knowledge of issues. So, we also emphasize, you know, making voting a community thing, making voting the norm in a community, making sure that students know,like, “Your campus is voting, your classmates will be voting, your friends are going to be voting,” and that really helps students break down how scared they are of the process and see it as more of a normal thing.
[High Turnout Wide Margins Midbreak]
Brianna Lennon: So, one of the things that we try to do in our episodes is highlight areas, like, tangible things that local election officials can do, and I ask this – partly selfishly being a college town – what recommendations do you have for election officials in trying to build relationships on college campuses? Because there can be obstacles sometimes in figuring out what the best office to talk to is. Student leadership turns over every year, and so, it can be hard to kind of get a toehold on some things. So, are there long term, kind of, organizational ways that local election officials can help on this?
Eddy Zebre: 100%. Part of the reason we were so excited to be here at Election Center was because that other hat that we wear, besides National Voter Education Week and civic holidays, we actually came out with a report in 2021 where we highlighted different ways that campuses work with local election offices around the country. We sent out a survey that had like 110 election officials fill it out and 100 campuses, and we did 18 one-on-one interviews, and we came up with a list of recommendations that campuses can do to better strengthen their relations with their local election office and vice versa, what local election offices can do. So, it's been nice being here to get a reminder. It's like, "Oh yeah, we have this report and there's a lot of really good information in here."
The report has a couple of really simple, kind of, structural things that local election offices can do, things like, for example, just setting a point person so that a campus knows who it is they have to be talking to when they have election-related questions, right? It's not to say that someone has to be dedicated to campus voting. We know election offices, they're stretched thin, folks are wearing many different hats, but as long as it's a consistent person, it's a lot easier for a campus to, like, loop them into events, know who to reach out to, etc.
The other really great example that we saw that was an easier lift was also creating a voting page specifically for college students – either creating one on their website, on the local election officials website, or collaborating with the college when the college was building their, you know, “How to vote as a student” web page, or whatever. Both of those things are, like very, you know, was something that we saw a lot of people already doing, and kind of like as a first step for being able to establish really good relations.
But the cool thing that we saw from the report were there were some more advanced techniques that we started seeing a lot of offices do, and they started seeing a lot of really great benefits – such as running internship programs with their colleges, either maybe with a faculty member that was offering college credit, or through their career center, or even through the funds that my election office gets, like the temporary work funds that they get near elections. That was a, a lot of really great examples of what they were doing there came up through that.
And the other thing that we saw that was really exciting was poll worker recruitment. A lot of offices have really great high school poll worker programs, but the college space was one that was, we only saw a few offices kind of like starting to get into there, and the ones who were able to set them up, they had a consistent recruitment space, and all of this work just opened up a lot of other possibilities. So, it was really – it was a great report. We really want to revisit it and see how the, you know, landscape has changed.
Eric Fey: I think most election administrators, you talk to them, you know, like at the bar after the sessions are over, and if they have a college or university campus in their jurisdiction, they're going to say, “That's the worst. That's,” you know, “the college students are the biggest headache by far,” and that was definitely my experience when I started in this role, you know, that one campus polling place would have a quarter or a third of all the provisional ballots in the whole jurisdiction, kind of thing.
But what I learned was, if we – the election office – make a more deliberate and constant outreach to the point person on campus or point organization, whoever that may be, it will make things run more smoothly, and so, I think some of the things you said really hit home there, and, you know, one thing we do, we send the voter list, in advance the election, over to the university, and we say, "Look, these are all the people registered in the dorms right now. Run it against the people who are actually living in the dorms and let them know that they need to update their address or register or whatever the case may be, and, you know, talk about voter ID if that's a thing or, you know, if your mom's already requested an absentee ballot for you, and then you show up to vote – which happens all the time – this is what has to happen kind of thing." So, putting a little more work in on the front end, I have found makes a world of difference, and I wonder if that is something your research and outreach has emphasized.
Eddy Zebre: I mean that's one of the reasons that we're really excited to potentially revisit this report, right? To see how the landscape has changed because when we created this report in 2021 I felt like that was definitely the norm. It was, I wouldn't say, I wouldn't go as far as, like, contentious, but it was a little more rare to see such collaboration, and now, even for my 24 hours here, I didn't, I haven't had one contentious point raised. Everyone's – they're wondering how to work closer or they're coming to me with really cool examples that I had never even seen before of being able to work with their local campus, right? And so, I do think things are moving in that direction. And I think part of the reason why is exactly what you said – I think campuses have historically been tough because students are very confused about how to vote and where to vote, just like all first time voters are, and putting in just that little bit of effort really streamlines the election administration process. It creates a lot less voter registration errors that they got to fix and go back to, and even, we've heard of a lot of examples of campuses just being able to set up – basically be able to completely set up an event or a celebration or something, right? That an election official just has to, or their office, someone from their office, just has to show up to for, you know, 30 minutes, an hour to register a bunch of voters. And that's the way they plug in. So, we've seen a lot of really great ways that this has helped both parties, and we've seen it just be more of a win-win all around.
Brianna Lennon: Voting on campus can sometimes be very hectic, and we have found that a lot of the time that we are trying to put out information, students rely on their parents’ knowledge, which may be in a different location, and so, they sometimes are expecting something different or have a different understanding of how things are going to work, which I know can then lead to, like you had mentioned – the underestimation of their own ability to vote, and we hear that constantly when we do mock elections. People always say, “It's way easier than I thought that it was going to be,’ which is great, but has that come up through some of the work that you've done – is the role that that students’ families have in trying to do this because sometimes we'll have college students that register to vote just to get in-state tuition, and they have no interest in actually voting, but they do end up registering to vote and it’s because their parents have asked them to so they can pay a lower in-state tuition rate. So, I'm just wondering if that has come up in any of the work that you've done?
Eddy Zebre: No, that's actually a really interesting point we haven't looked into. I mean, so much of the work that we do is about voter education and voter engagement, in general. So, we hit on those topics, right? Wherever it is that they learn these things, we're trying to make sure they get it from the most trusted sources, right? Which in most cases, is going to be y'all, and so, a lot of the materials that we put out is just trying to make it as easy as possible for campuses, faculty, student leaders or election officials or community leaders that are on campuses to put the right information in front of students. So, whatever it is they think they know, they get the right information right?
But I will say what we have seen is actually the opposite, which is that one of the benefits that we've seen of engaging with campuses is that a lot of students actually bring this back home, and this happened with my own family, as well, where – and this tends to happen a lot with first generation families and students – they actually bring this back home, they bring the knowledge back home, and they helped encourage and get their family ready to vote. And I remember this happening with me, with my dad and him actually casting a ballot, my mom just got her citizenship five years ago and just cast her ballot for the first time, and so, that's actually one of the things that we've been getting from some of the programs that we run where we're able to talk to students, and we've started seeing, like, a rippling effect from it that we didn't really fully expect, and we're not sure exactly how to quantify, but it is really, really cool to see it. So, yeah, we've kind of – that's the relation we've seen, and we want to do more in that to understand it, but yeah.
Brianna Lennon: So, the work that you have done in leveraging sports and activating people to vote through that – On college campuses, there are lots of different sports, there's lots of different popularity levels and things like that – how have you seen it work at both the, you know, if you're in a city and you've got professionalized sports even surrounding your college town and having like – we're an SEC town, so the SEC will do things to mobilize people, but generally it's just related to student athletes and not the larger population. So, can you just dive more into what you do for that?
Eddy Zebre: Yeah, I love this question so much. I mean, I think, so we put out some guidance earlier this year that talks about how people can tap into like trusted messengers in a community to help get voting-related information and, like, trusted voting information out to young people and students. And I think an overarching philosophy in our work is – what works in one community is not always going to work in another, right? But especially in the South, and especially in an SEC community or campus – sports is going to work, like, almost always.
And so, these student athletes really have a very, very big platform – not just with raw numbers, but a lot of trust, too. They can be very trusted in a community. And these are messengers, like trusted messengers that students can feel close to because they have classes with them, they hang out with them, they see them, you know, around.
One of our coalition partners is called “The Team,” and they do a lot of really cool work. They run like a national fellowship where they hire student athletes that lead voter engagement programs on their campus every year. It's so cool. They always do a lot of really fun events to get them involved, like, they did a National Voter Education Week event a couple years ago where they were they brought in – it was like a virtual event, but they had watch parties with all of their student athlete fellows where they brought in more student athletes to attend this event, and they brought in Steph Curry, Condoleezza Rice, like, just very interesting, but a super cool panel of folks to talk about the agency that they had as student athletes and the power that they had in their voice and how they could use that voice to help mobilize their campus community.
So, I think there's a couple different – there's obviously the mobilizing factor with students, but there's also, through sports, there's almost like a competition layer that's added where, sometimes, one school within the same conference or something sees the work that they're doing and wants to kind of one up them, and you start seeing, kind of, athletic voting competitions form. There's a few of those that have been formally established across the years and have done really cool work, and, you know, the University of Michigan marching band, a couple years ago, spelled out “Vote” during one of their halftime shows. It's just ways to further ingrain voting into our everyday culture. Just see it as a very normal thing that our communities do that isn't, you know, it's not a scary monster, right?
Lessons from my last job that dealt with that – specifically working with college and professional students doing this is that, honestly, college and professional athletes have the same exact questions that like a lot of other student and first time and young voters have because they're all young and first time voters at the end of the day. So, a big part of it is just honestly removing their own fear of voting and normalizing it a lot, and then, once you're able to get through that, it's, you know, it's opened up a lot of really great possibilities and opportunities.
Brianna Lennon: So, trying to meet college students, I think, where they are and the things that motivate them to do things other than voting – I mean, there's a million decisions that college students have to make and voting is just one of them, and what are things that local election offices can do to cut through some of the other stuff to help college students think that voting is cool and prioritize that in the course of their day when they're trying to decide when they're going to lunch and when they're going to study for a test and those things?
Eddy Zebre: I mean, I'll say two things. I think, first and foremost, young people, they have a BS meter that's just so good, and so, I think the part of being cool is being authentic and genuine and not trying to hide your true self.
And the other thing I'll say is that, I mean, I'm not – I don't consider myself a young person anymore, unfortunately. So, the other piece of advice that we have is just work with young people to tailor that messaging. So, I could easily say, "Make a meme that's going to have young people think it's funny and connect with it,” but I don't know what that is anymore that people connect with, and so, what we encourage is if it's – either through an internship or just in collaboration, if you're maybe a part of a student voting coalition on a campus, and you work with student leaders who are mobilizing their peers – just what are they posting and can you steal some of that material, right? And maybe some of it isn't going to be – maybe they have more applicable versions that are going to be fine on a local election office page or something, but yeah, I'm no longer the spokesperson for what they find is cool, but I know they want it authentic, and I know it helps to have it come from young people.
Eric Fey: You've been listening to High Turnout Wide Margins, a podcast that explores local elections administration. I'm your host, Eric Fey alongside Brianna Lennon. A big thanks to KBIA and the Election Center for making this podcast possible. Our Managing Editor is Rebecca Smith. Managing Producer is Aaron Hay. Our Associate Producer is Katie Quinn, and our Digital Producer is Mark Johnson. This has been High Turnout Wide Margins. Thanks for listening.
