he Local Elections Engagement Guide is a comprehensive toolkit developed by the Students Learn Students Vote (SLSV) Coalition’s Local Elections Working Group to help campus leaders, faculty, and organizations increase student participation in local and state elections. This resource addresses the unique challenges of engaging college students in elections that directly impact their daily lives but often receive less attention than national races.
The guide provides research-backed messaging strategies and adaptable outreach ideas to make civic engagement more accessible and relevant to students. It offers guidance on how to make the stakes of local elections feel immediate and real to a college audience, helping students see the direct connections between their votes and the issues they care about. The resource includes best practices for communicating across different platforms, ensuring students receive the information they need in a way that resonates.
Key components include strategies for addressing student challenges to voting locally, messaging tactics and guidance, connections between local issues and student concerns, activation ideas for campus engagement, and partnerships with local election officials and community organizations.