Little Known Law Could Boost Youth Voter Registration Before Election, If Action Taken Now

The nation is experiencing one of the greatest mobilization efforts ever seen for a midterm election. And young voters, as a result of their rising turnout rates in recent cycles, are increasingly becoming the target of those efforts. With voter registration deadlines fast approaching in many states, get-out-the-vote groups should take an additional look at the highly mobile college population and take advantage of a little-known federal voter registration law that helps them register to vote.

Tucked away in the Higher Education Act is a requirement that colleges and universities make an effort to help students register to vote by distributing voter registration applications by email or by paper (if distributed by email, the email must be solely dedicated to voter registration). Schools that do not do so risk losing millions in federal funding.

An estimated six to eight million part-and full-time students in 2010 are unregistered, according to a recent op-ed by Douglas Hess and Steven Rosenfeld: “Compliance with the HEA could easily facilitate the registration of hundreds of thousand of new, young voters and update the registrations of an equal number.”

Registration deadlines start kicking in soon: the first few states stop accepting new registrations next Monday, October 4. So, it is imperative that schools take this opportunity to follow the law by reminding their students that time is running out if they want to register to vote in another historic election this November.

Schools and voter registration groups should:

1. Send an email to all students with voter registration forms as a link or a PDF attachment, and provide them with the deadline;
2. Remind students to print and mail their voter registration forms (unless they live in states that provide a completely online voter registration service);
3. Also provide the link to the national voter registration form (for out-of-state or commuting students to use); and
4. Continue to supplement voter registration emails with in-class registration or voter registration tables.

Click here to see a list of voter registration deadlines. If your state’s deadline is several weeks away, consider sending one email now and another the week before the deadline. (Schools in six states are exempt from this law: Idaho, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.)