In January of 2023, the Governor of Ohio signed into law HB 458 which, among other things, forces in-person voters to use an unexpired photo ID to vote during the early voting period or on Election Day and only accepts an Ohio driver’s license, an Ohio-issued state identification card, a U.S. or state military ID, or a passport as valid forms of voter ID. This not only made voting in-person in Ohio difficult for out-of-state students who reside in and contribute to their campus communities in Ohio, but also complicated voting for students from Ohio who may not have one of the four types of required ID mentioned above.
The new law presented direct challenges for the Kent State Votes (KSV) Coalition at Kent State University. Prior to 2023, one of KSV Coalition’s primary goals was to increase early in-person voting among their students, recognizing that voting early ensures students can vote at a time that is convenient for them and that they avoid any last-minute issues when casting their ballots. Before the passage of HB 458, proof of on-campus residency, which the KSV Coalition could secure for Kent State students, was acceptable in lieu of in-state ID. However, when faced with significant changes in state election law that eliminated this form of voter ID and other previously legal ways to vote, the KSV Coalition was forced to rethink its nonpartisan voter engagement strategies as they prepared for the 2024 presidential election.
In the past, the KSV Coalition didn’t prioritize absentee voting as a viable voting method to promote to students due to various challenges with voting-by-mail and students’ limited knowledge generally about how to send and receive mail. But as a partner from the local chapter of the League of Women Voters pointed out, following the passage of HB 458, absentee voting does not present identification challenges as onerous as voting in-person now does in the state of Ohio.
In partnership with the Undergraduate Student Government, the Office of the President, University Communications & Marketing, the League of Women Voters of Kent, the local Board of Elections, and others, the KSV Coalition set out to develop and implement new strategies focused on encouraging students to vote by absentee ballot. This required a lot of advanced planning, given the extended timeline necessary for absentee voting. It also required hiring a student majoring in visual communications and design who was capable of creating easy-to-follow graphics that explain the various steps students would have to complete to successfully vote by absentee ballot.
Throughout the adaptation of their strategies, equity remained a guiding principle for the KSV Coalition. This manifested when Kent State’s only on-campus post office was removed due to renovations in the campus student center, removing what was, at the time, the only place on campus for students to purchase postage. Members of the KSV Coalition were able to convince a convenience store in an on-campus dining hall to start selling stamps. The KSV Coalition even advocated and successfully got the store to sell individual stamps to students rather than require students to purchase an entire book of stamps, knowing that this could be a barrier that would deter some students from casting their ballots.
For the KSV Coalition, this experience demonstrated the importance of partnerships on and off campus, showed how creativity can breed innovation and successful new strategies, and illustrated how resources can be leveraged to add even more value than may initially be apparent.