On Election Day, PIRG student leaders and volunteers helped tens of thousands of students get the information they needed to vote, many for the first time.
Our New Voters Project campaigns were in full force on college campuses in more than a dozen states across the country today. Across the board, students were enthusiastic about making their voices heard in the election. In our last push, we were able to help more than 450,000 students find their polling places, bring the right IDs, find rides to the polls, and get answers to their questions about the voting process.
In North Carolina, our students started the day by handing out coffee and helping students figure out when they were voting between classes. In New Jersey our first class announcements of the day reached hundreds of students. Throughout the day, the team pounded the pavement and hit the phones on quads, in student centers, and in classrooms. And as we approach the closing of polls here on the East Coast, our students in California, Oregon, and Washington are hard at work energizing their peers to vote, even if that means waiting in line after class.
I am excited to share the full breadth of our amazing work from this semester in the coming days, but I wanted to send some quick highlights from the ground, showcasing just a small portion of the work student leaders with the nonpartisan Student PIRGs’ New Voters Project have done
Check out our Election Day Highlight Reel for full highlights from Election Day!
Best,
Manny Rin
Director, New Voters Project
Student PIRGs
Students at PennPIRG at Pitt helping students vote in Pennsylvania.
(Left) A new voter came up to tell us that we helped register her to vote & she was able to cast her ballot today! The team helped students afford to get to polls by sharing Lyft discount codes.
WISPIRG Students at UW-Madison educating students on Election Eve!
NJ PIRG Students at Rutgers worked closely with RU Voting, the campus vote coalition, to reach hundreds of students on Election Day.
After a day of tabling, here they are prepping for their party after the polls while phone banking!
At UC Riverside, the lines stretched down the block. PIRG students got Pizza to the Polls to help keep morale high.
Many students didn’t know that they could register and vote on the same day in California and the team was able to recruit students to join the voting line!
PIRGIM at Michigan State held a Plan to Vote Pet a Goat Event
OSPIRG students tabling to GOTV! In the first hour they talked to more than 200 students!
GOTV Table at UNC Chapel Hill (feat. the vote goat!!!)
Georgia PIRG asking GSU students why they vote!
MASSPIRG Students collect vote letters and plan to vote at their event with the Vote Goat!
Students from all of our states reached tens of thousands of voters on the phone in the final push.
