At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, founding father Benjamin Franklin was asked, “Well, Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?”
“A republic, if you can keep it,” Franklin answered. Sacrosanct to a republic versus a monarchy is the right of citizens to vote. And it is this fundamental right that JumboVote has poured its efforts into, leading up to Election Day.
Founded in 2016 by Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life, JumboVote serves as the Tufts community’s nonpartisan voter engagement and voter education organization.
“Our mission … is to make voting easy, fun and accessible, and to empower people through knowledge, but not to shame people who can’t vote, and also to help people understand that voting is just one step that you can take,” JumboVote co-Chair Seona Maskara said.
Through partnerships with other entities, JumboVote has access to key administrative, informational and fiscal resources. Tisch College lends logistical support, especially with advice from Daniela Sánchez, the college’s senior program coordinator.
JumboVote is the Tufts chapter of the Andrew Goodman Foundation, a national nonprofit that funds civic engagement organizations at different universities. JumboVote also partners with TurboVote, a nonprofit website that provides voters with informational resources.
Teagan Mustone, the local outreach chair, noted that the past few months have been packed with JumboVote events.
“We’ve been canvassing and tabling since the first day Tufts students came,” Mustone said. “Now [it feels like] it’s events every day. I was tabling at the [Science and Engineering Complex] yesterday, trying to get engineering students energized and excited to vote.”
These tabling events have focused on helping students register to vote, answering questions about mail-in voting and providing information about local ballot questions.
Co-Chair Remy Bernatavicius spoke about the success of the club’s National Voter Registration Day programming on Sept. 17.
“We had different tabling at Tisch [Library] and the [Mayer Campus Center] and Barnum [Hall], and we had different activities at each one. We had QR codes, we had websites, we had all these resources for people to register to vote and we reached so many people,” she said. “That was one of the kickstart events of our semester that went really well.”
Bernatavicius also described the Voting Party the club hosted on Oct. 15.
“We really centered that party on understanding that it’s important to care about local politics and to be educated,” she said. “We gave two presentations, one on Massachusetts ballot initiatives, and one on how to research your ballot.”
Some states require witnesses to sign the ballot in addition to the voter, so the club’s executive board acted as such for these students. At the end of the event, Bernativicius and others directed students to post their ballots in the mailbox outside of Olin Center for Language and Cultural Studies.
Beyond these kinds of large events, JumboVote also held regular office hours, in which members provided witnesses and notaries, as some states require mail-in ballots to be notarized, and were available to answer any questions.
The club also focuses on issues local to Tufts’ host communities, particularly in Medford. As local outreach chair and as a lifelong Medford resident, Mustone’s work centers around keeping Tufts students informed about the community.
“There are a large number … of Tufts students who are registered in Medford. So [we’re] trying to bridge that gap of the Medford students who are voting and the community itself,” Mustone said. “We did a presentation about ballot initiatives in Medford; there are a few very contentious ones, [so we’re] trying to educate students about [them].”
Education is a major aspect of JumboVote’s work. Maskara emphasized that the club aims to empower students not only through voting but also through other forms of civic engagement.
“We really encourage people to vote, but we also encourage people to stay on top of the media, watch the debates, watch everything. We encourage people to look into different systemic issues. We encourage people to contact their elected officials,” Maskara said.
Although contacting elected officials may feel inaccessible for some, Maskara says that representatives often have phone numbers or email addresses constituents can use to contact them.
“If you get enough people to do that, if there’s a big enough movement, the elected official will take notice and change will happen,” Maskara said.
On Election Day, the club is focused on making sure students can get to the polls smoothly. JumboVote is providing rides from the Campus Center for Tufts students registered to vote in Medford/Somerville from 12–8 p.m. on an as-needed basis. They are also offering Lyft codes for $20 vouchers for students in Massachusetts to get to the polls. These codes can be accessed from the JumboVote Instagram.
Another part of the club’s Election Day efforts is coordinating student volunteers to be poll greeters.
“[The greeters] stand outside the polls and make sure that people are going to the right place. Oftentimes, with student registration, it can be really tricky to find out where you’re supposed to go, because … Tufts is half in Medford, half in Somerville,” Maskara said. “Those poll greeters have the Tufts lawyers’ contact information … to make sure that people aren’t being actively disenfranchised on Election Day.”
The day ends with the Election Night Extravaganza, an event for students in the Joyce Cummings Center that JumboVote is co-sponsoring.
“You’ll be able to watch the polls with other people; there will be food,” Maskara said. “If that stresses you out, and that’s not the way you want to engage with the election, you don’t have to. I feel like there’s no bad way to engage with the election. We’re just providing one option.”
Looking ahead to the post-election period, the club hopes to keep students educated about issues in Congress, plan for the 2026 midterm elections and develop plans for target audiences.
“I think we’re going to try to focus more on engineering students or STEM students, because they are the ones with the lowest voter turnout,” Mustone said.
After months of intense involvement, the JumboVote leaders feel proud of the work they’ve done.
“I’ve noticed that people on campus really are talking about voting. … I think that we have been able to provide [resources],” Maskara said. “We have our email inbox, we have our social media, we have our office hours and we’ve seen people come with questions that we have been able to answer. And … through tabling, I feel like we’ve reached hundreds of people on this campus.”
