You can feel it in the air: A national election is approaching. The political rhetoric is intensifying, campaign advertisements are beginning and the primary season is in full swing. But how does a national election translate to the Tufts campus?
The campus ecosystem surrounding elections is broad, featuring everything from individual student perspectives to student run political clubs to political research organizations.
One such research organization at Tufts is the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, which is housed in the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life. CIRCLE engages with students on elections by undertaking critical research on youth participation in elections with the goal of improving opportunities for young people to meaningfully participate in civic life.
Sara Suzuki, a senior researcher with the CIRCLE team, emphasized that the organization pushes for inclusivity through their research and works to expand voting access for young people by sharing research with nonprofit partners.
“We really try to emphasize young people’s voice and agency around elections. We really don’t want young people to be treated transactionally during elections [by the media].”
Part of this effort coalesces around reframing media perspectives towards young voters.
Suzuki highlighted that the youth vote is composed of a diverse coalition of voices and that it’s dangerous to use the term college students interchangeably with youth voters.
“At CIRCLE we always pay really close attention to the fact that not all young people are in college,” she said. “There are many young people who don’t go to college or delay college for various reasons, and often that overlaps with socioeconomic status and other background factors.”
She also elaborated that part of CIRCLE’s research includes conducting pre and post-election surveys that attempt to capture youth sentiment towards voting. Beyond asking traditional questions, this survey also highlights whether young people have access to resources that would inform them about voting options.
“We ask questions like ‘Do you make use of your public library?’ ‘Did you get civic education while you were in highschool?’ ‘Do you have the information needed to vote?’” she said.
Through partnerships, CIRCLE shares their research and supports grassroots organizations that fight for immigration justice, economic justice, labor rights and women’s reproductive rights. Suzuki underscored the interconnected nature of many of these issues and voting rights as important to CIRCLE’s work.
In addition to these partnerships, Suzuki spoke to how CIRCLE tries to combat multiple misconceptions about young people in terms of voting.
“I think it happens in our own personal biases where you don’t hear from someone and you just assume, ‘Oh, I didn’t hear from young people, so they don’t care or they don’t have something to say,’” she said.
She went on to say that these biases often are incorrect. Additionally, she explained that not hearing from people on surveys stems from structural barriers, like a lack of access to information. Partnering with colleges, CIRCLE seeks to rectify this by increasing student voter turnout. CIRCLE is looking to expand this partnership.
“I think that the college aspect of things is actually a growing area of CIRCLE recently. … We are looking to expand how we partner with college campuses to think about turning out students to vote,” she said.
How does this research and information pertain to Tufts’ students? Are they planning on voting?
Beyond organizations such as CIRCLE, Tufts students are also looking towards the 2024 election cycle. Four Tufts students interviewed by the Daily expressed that they plan on voting and have already decided who they will vote for; however, generally, they expressed nerves and reservations about the candidates running.
In terms of civic involvement, sophomore Mika Margalit shared a similar sentiment to CIRCLE on the interconnectedness of advocacy work and voting.
“I see myself more getting involved with the social issues that are most pertinent to what I find most interesting … maybe less so the election as a whole, but rather the issues that come up in the election,” she said.
Looking to the election as a whole, first-year Stanley Spence expressed that thinking about the election a few weeks ago made him feel unsettled.
“I had a lot of feelings … it was the first time [elections] really felt huge and like we were going to have a real regime change … It was the first time in my life I considered [that] I could leave America and be happy. But that kind of settled [over time].”
Junior Samuel Brenner, who is planning on voting, communicated similarly that he feels anxious about the upcoming election.
While there was universal agreement about nerves regarding the upcoming election, the four interviewees gave mixed responses about whether they had talked with friends about it. Responses ranged from not having discussed it at all to talking about it quite often.
“I don’t think my friends really care or they don’t talk about [the election],” remarked first-year Marco Salimbeni.
On the other hand, Spence shared that he talks with friends regularly about the election after their political thought class.
Another common theme was frustrations with the electoral college and the resulting pattern that votes cast in non-battleground states likely won’t determine the election.
“I think it can be hard coming from a state and also being in a state that is so blue to feel like doing things will be that big of a splash,” Margalit explained.
Spence expressed similar concerns but emphasized that it’s still important to vote out of principle.
Brenner emphasized that despite the limitations of the electoral college, students should encourage others to vote.
“Because as s----- as the electoral college is, the people who live in those [battleground] states will decide this election,” he said.
When we return to campus in the fall, attention and excitement around the election are bound to intensify. In these beginning stages, though, one thread running through student responses was a shared commitment to the importance of voting.
As Salimbeni stated: “Go vote, it’s important.”
