Experts expect high voter turnout among MSU students. The question is where they'll vote.

Mark Johnson
Lansing State Journal
Republicans lead the race for two spots on the Michigan State University Board of Trustees according to updated unofficial vote tallies posted Wednesday morning.

EAST LANSING — Marissa Pletcher doesn't enjoy the two-hour drive home to Norton Shores and fears the threat of COVID-19 at the polls, so she chose to vote by mail-in ballot instead.  

Pletcher, a senior at Michigan State University, is registered to vote in her hometown near Muskegon and mailed her ballot several weeks ago.

College students are less likely than older generations. Just 46.1% of 18 to 29 years olds voted in 2016, according to U.S. Census data, compared with about 70.9% of voters at least 65 years old and 66.6% of adults between the ages of 45 to 64.

But this year, college students around the country are expected to vote in record numbers.

“I do expect to see (high student voter turnout),” said Sarah Reckhow, an associate professor of political science at MSU, who said the COVID-19 pandemic, the Black Lives Matter movement and political turmoil have helped increase enthusiasm among student voters. “Young people were especially engaged. I would connect a number of different dots here that shows this election…the level of interest is extraordinary.”

Higher voter turnout is already showing up in several battleground states. Voters between the ages of 18 and 29-years-old cast 170,600 early votes in Michigan as of Oct. 23, according to Tufts University data. That's compared to 14,900 at the same point in 2016. 

But it's where the students actually vote, whether it be from their college town or hometown, that could make a difference.

College towns like East Lansing that are home to universities with few students on campus due to the pandemic could see a dip in student votes.

The number of MSU students filing as East Lansing voters increased in 2018, Reckhow said. The East Lansing City Clerk’s Office confirmed that about 6,000 on-campus students had registered to vote in East Lansing in August before most in-person classes were canceled. Fewer than 2,000 students continue living on campus with an unknown number staying in off-campus housing.

It’s unknown how many are registered voters, making voter turnout in November hard to predict.

“I really don’t know what it will look like now,” Reckhow said.

Elissa Slotkin

Two opponents

U.S. Rep. Elissa Slotkin, D-Holly, won the 8th Congressional District election in 2018 by 13,098 votes. She knows she’s in for a tighter race this year against Republican Paul Junge.

“I feel that I’m not only running against my opponent, I’m running against COVID,” she said.

Thanks to COVID-19, there will be fewer ballots cast by college students in East Lansing, who are more likely to support Democratic candidates. Slotkin easily won Ingham County in 2018 and needs those votes to offset the Republican challenge in Livingston and Oakland counties. 

With few students on campus, it's been tough for her to meet with potential student supporters and work to earn their votes. When COVID-19 cases began rising in the spring, Slotkin’s campaign reorganized to find ways to make up for lost votes.

She changed the campaign internship program to include 18 high school seniors who could network and register new student voters in high schools. A $50,000 outreach program targeted 18-to-29-year-olds on social media platforms such as Instagram and Snapchat.

They additionally targeted the specific precincts where MSU students live off-campus to push voter registration. Work to register voters will continue up to election day, she said.

Paul Junge

Junge doesn't worry too much about the potential loss of MSU student voters. And he doesn't have a narrow focus on reaching student voters.

With Slotkin holding a massive fundraising lead, Junge said he's trying to reach as many voters as possible by any means possible, from social media and political mailers to radio and TV advertisements.

"All of my focus is to try to reach out to registered voters in the district," he said. 

A large number of students still live in East Lansing near campus, said Matt Grossmann, director of the Institute for Public Policy and Social Research at MSU. But getting students or people of college-student age to vote has always been a struggle that could continue with the November election.

About 150 million voters will submit ballots nationwide, according to estimates from Michael McDonald, a University of Florida professor who administers the U.S. Elections Project. That’s about 65% of all eligible voters.

Grossman expects to certainly see an increase in student voters included among the 150 million, but, if McDonald is right, the rate of voter turnout likely will rise in the other demographics as well.

It remains to be seen how many MSU students will actually vote in East Lansing. Young people tend to vote at the lowest rate, Grossman said, but younger people in college are more likely to cast ballots than their non-student peers. That’s where the importance of voter mobilization comes in.

If young people don’t see their friends or others around them voting, many won’t vote, he said. And COVID-19 makes it harder for candidates to reach those young people to encourage them to get registered and go to the polls.

“I have an opponent,” Slotkin said, "but I’m running against COVID. COVID has changed my race.”

Voting for the future

Pletcher is an intern with MSUvote, a non-partisan, on-campus information resource that works to help MSU students vote.

“We are doing everything we can to make sure that our students have all of the information they need to vote, whether they are in East Lansing or a different home community,” said Renee Brown, co-chair of MSUvote and director of the MSU Center for Community Engaged Learning. 

MSUvote has been targeting students to share election information and help with voting issues, like completing the mail-in ballot process or changing voter registration addresses.

Other MSUvote members make voting information packets with voter guides, hand sanitizer and masks. They bring the packets to off-campus students and make them available to on-campus students at the front desks of their residence halls or apartments, Pletcher said.

Driving voter turnout among college students this year involves plenty of online events, said Kjerstin Thorson, an MSU associate professor of communications, since candidates and organizations like MSUvote can’t go door-to-door in the residence halls or host on-campus events. They're also having a hard time reaching the new freshmen or sophomore students who are spending the semester at home and who may have never voted before. 

The added decisions, like whether to vote in-person or by absentee ballot, make the process more tedious for students. Thorson said the election also brings fear for students of color over the heated rhetoric at the national level that could impact the atmosphere at the polls.

But current events are also driving enthusiasm among college voters, chiefly the movement against racial injustice, Thorson said.

The students Pletcher has spoken to plan to vote for similar reasons, she said.

“The main things people have said, one that sticks out to me is ‘We’re not voting for right now. We’re voting for the future,” Pletcher said. “A lot of people have been saying ‘I want my voice to be heard.’”

Contact Mark Johnson at 517-377-1026 or at majohnson2@lsj.com. Follow him on Twitter at @ByMarkJohnson.