Holy Family University’s Voter Engagement Efforts Lead to Increase in Student Voter Registrations

Holy Family University has undertaken multiple initiatives to encourage more students to participate in the upcoming election. Through voter engagement efforts, 47 Holy Family students were newly registered to vote - and every student had the opportunity to engage in deepening their civic involvement.

Students were able to register to vote through a series of bi-weekly voter registration drives held by the Student Government Association (SGA) during common hours. The SGA will also have an engagement table available on Monday, November 4, focused on election reminders and where to vote.

In addition to increasing voter registration, Holy Family assisted students with signing up for poll worker opportunities through Work Study. Resources were also provided to help the full campus community with locating specific voting places, engaging with the mail-in ballot process, and providing students support to ensure they can vote on November 5 without an impact to academics.

Holy Family University partnered with several organizations in its voter engagement efforts. The University and the Philadelphia Election Commissioners Office hosted three engagement events focused on voter registration and election engagement from August through October. 

The University recently joined the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge to increase student voting rates. ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge is a nonpartisan national organization that shares a resource toolkit with institutions to help promote voter registration. The toolkit includes tips for developing a campus coalition, creating an action plan, and participating in the National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement.

The University also collaborated with the Committee of Seventy on two connection calls to discuss ways to engage the campus community on voting. These calls led to the establishment of tabling outreach efforts based on the Committee’s resources and to internal Democracy Dialogue sessions through SGA General Meetings based on the Committee of Seventy’s work in higher education.