SLSV CHECKLIST
Foundational to our work, Students Learn Students Vote (SLSV) Coalition partners commit to promoting the SLSV Checklist, a four step process for institutionalizing student voting engagement for the long term. We start with a simple premise grounded in trust, not transaction: local leaders who know their campus best, who are committed to their specific place, and who have access to local social networks are best positioned and most culturally equipped to drive dramatic and sustainable increases in voter participation, learning, and growth over time.
LEAD
Ensure a campus vote coordinator is appointed by a respected campus leader to lead your student democratic engagement programs. Are you the one leading your campus efforts?
Then the campus vote coordinator is you!
Before you begin, get in touch with the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge and/or the Fair Elections Center’s Campus Vote Project for free, nonpartisan coaching support as you begin your student voter engagement journey.
engage
Once you’ve chosen a campus leader, the next step is pulling together a diverse team of people on campus to help you implement your voter engagement efforts.
The most successful campus coalitions include representatives from student affairs, academic affairs, government relations, student leadership, local nonprofits, and local election officials.
assess
Do you know your campus’ registration and voting rates?
This data is super important to understand as you begin to craft your voter engagement plan.
You can access this data through the National Study of Learning, Voting and Engagement (NSLVE), a free service from the Institute for Democracy & Higher Education, an applied research center at the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Civic Life at Tufts University that offers colleges and universities an opportunity to learn more about their student registration and voting rates.
plan
Once you have built a diverse coalition and analyzed your student voting data, you are ready to strategically plan and embed voter registration, voter education, and voter mobilization on your campus!
Read the Strengthening American Democracy Guide (SADG), a guide for developing an action plan that increases civic learning, political engagement, and voting rates among college students. This will help you think through all the components of a thoughtful and strong action plan.
Check out some of the most highly evaluated democratic engagement action plans from other campuses to get some inspiration as you create your own!
We encourage campuses to join and submit their democratic engagement actions plans to a coaching and awards program like the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge or the Fair Elections Center’s Campus Vote Project and NASPA’s Voter Friendly Designation program. We also highly recommend evaluating your plan and implementation after the election and building on your efforts for the next year!
Are you considering joining the SLSV Coalition?
Click below to help you decide if the Coalition is a good fit for your work and learn what being a part of the Coalition entails.
