On-Campus Polling Stations Are Key to Youth Voter Turnout, Minnesota Leads the Way
At St. Olaf College, students like Alayna Gossard benefit from the convenience of on-campus voting, driving Minnesota’s nation-leading youth turnout. But across the U.S., accessibility remains a barrier as policymakers debate the future of campus polling places.
By Lydie Lake
On November 5, St. Olaf College student Alayna Gossard walked to her on-campus polling place and voted in between her classes. As opposed to driving into Northfield, the nearby town, and waiting 30 minutes to an hour to vote, she cast her ballot in just a few minutes.
In Minnesota – where Gossard’s college is located – young people vote in especially high rates. The North Star State led the nation’s youth vote in 2018 and 2022 with rates of 43.7 percent and 36 percent, respectively. More specifically, St. Olaf College has consistently won the All in Democracy Challenge for multiple election years, a competition where over 500 schools participate to achieve the highest voting rate. Gossard thinks St. Olaf’s on-campus polling station is a large contributor to the school’s success in youth civic participation.
“St. Olaf has one of the highest voting percentages, and, obviously, there’s a reason for that because we can vote on campus,” said Gossard. “Voting on campus is really important.”
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Barriers to Youth Voting
Without an on-campus polling station, the distance to a voting booth acts as a major barrier for not only young voters without means of transportation but also for all voters. For Gossard, the choice was easy with just a five minute walk to the voting station inside Skifter Hall, a building located in the center of St. Olaf’s campus.
On Election Day, some people walked, rode their bikes, drove, or took public transportation to the polls, while others who did not feel particularly motivated to vote questioned if they should get off the couch and drive 30 minutes to their designated location.
Election Day is always in the middle of the week, and when people have work and busy lives, countering in the time and money it takes to go to the polls can waiver someone’s decision to vote. Even just a one-mile increase in distance to a polling station, according to a 2020 American Economic Journal study, can reduce voter turnout by up to 20 percent.
The shortest median distance voters traveled to polls in 2022 ranged from 2.8 to 3.2 miles in Rhode Island and Nevada, respectively. The farthest median distance voters had to travel in certain states ranged from 5 to 5.8 miles, according to a 2022 report from the Election Administration Commission.
“If we didn’t have a polling place on campus, some students wouldn’t have voted,” said Gossard.
Gossard, a student at St. Olaf College, only had to walk five minutes to vote this election.
“We should want to make participation as easy as possible for everyone,” said Alberto Medina, the communications team lead at Tufts University’s Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE). “Just having things close to you, whether it’s a polling place or those ballot drop-off boxes, can make a huge difference.”
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Especially for young people, distance to ballot boxes becomes another issue to voting among other structural barriers they face, Medina explained, like constantly changing addresses during college and state legislatures restricting on-campus polling places.
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Accessibility to Polls
As the youth become more involved in politics, their votes start to matter more, which we saw in the 2024 presidential election where young voters surprisingly favored presidential candidate Donald Trump over Kamala Harris.
Without accessible polling places, we lose some of the youth vote; however, decisions over where polling places should be located and how many are left up to each state individually.
According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, five states including California, Colorado, Maryland, Minnesota, and Wyoming either require or encourage that polling places are located on university or college campuses. In 2022, Minnesota and Colorado had leading numbers for youth turnout compared to states that do not promote on-campus polling stations like Texas – where Republican lawmakers have attempted to eliminate on-campus polls.
“If we didn’t have a polling place on campus, some students wouldn’t have voted,” said Gossard. “It’s just out of pure conveniency.”
One organization, the Andrew Goodman Foundation, has worked through their Andrew Goodman Vote Everywhere program to achieve polling places on campuses across the country, including Arizona State University, Bard College in New York, the University of Michigan, the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Western Carolina University in North Carolina, and more.
Notably, these colleges have yielded high results when it comes to the turnout of eligible student voters, especially in the 2020 election. The University of Michigan defeated all other colleges with a rate of 78 percent student voter turnout. The lowest rate among these colleges was Bard College in 2020, with a 49 percent turnout rate, but half of students voting is better than nothing. The program continues to work on each of these schools, promoting civic engagement and boosting voter turnout.
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Elijah Sonntag, a St. Olaf student and election ambassador on his campus, informs his peer students on civic participation and how to get involved. Through one-on-one conversations with students and as a student, himself, he said young people do not have time to take 20 or 30 minutes out of their schedule to vote, so the on-campus polling place is a “lifesaver” for college students.
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Both Sonntag and Gossard discussed the ability to also register at the time of voting, which helps students who have time-consuming schoolwork and miss the voter registration deadline - another perk to an accessible polling station on Election Day.
“Without voter registration, you're stuck,” Sonntag said. “You can no longer vote, you can no longer have your voice heard.”
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The broader debate over on-campus polling places highlights the ongoing challenges and opportunities in fostering voter participation. As discussions around election accessibility continue, the role of on-campus polling stations remains a point of focus for policymakers, educators, and civic organizations aiming to support equitable access to the ballot box.
“College students generally do care and want their voices heard,” Sonntag said. “It's just making sure that they have the accessibility to go and do that.”