作为2024年大选倒计时一年开始时，候选人把年轻人的投票作为增加支持的一种手段。
在2020年选民投票率的基础上，一所大学校园已经成为高标准选民登记的堡垒。
明尼苏达州诺斯菲尔德的圣奥拉夫学院是一个学生团体的所在地，该团体的投票率比全国平均水平高出20%。
据该校称，该校近88%的合格学生在2020年的选举中投票，与同年全国其他大学66%的投票率形成鲜明对比。根据民意调查，后一个数字与全国平均投票率大致一致美国人口调查局.
圣奥拉夫校园的选举大使全年都在接近学生，希望与选民的冷漠作斗争。
学生伊莱贾·松塔格曾在2022年担任选举大使，他说这个角色主要是“能够建立个人联系，并说，‘嘿，你的声音很重要。’"
大使致力于通过贴纸、在线教学材料等方式提高学生对选民可及性的认识。校园也有自己的投票点。
另一名圣奥拉夫大学的学生Darartu Musse表示，候选人与大学校园的接触也有助于激发年轻人的投票，并为学生提供信息。
“越来越候选人或者让代表们更多地参与任何类型的社区，包括大学校园和移民社区，这是增加选民投票率的一种方式，也是解决信息差距的一个办法。
虽然大学生确实更倾向于投票给民主党，但圣奥拉夫学院(St. Olaf College)负责学术公民参与的助理主任艾丽莎·h·梅尔比(Alyssa H. Melby)表示，这与学校的使命无关。
“我们正在确保人们了解他们的公民权利以及行使这些权利的机会，”梅尔比说。
随着像圣奥拉夫这样的机构努力提高大学校园的投票率，几个历史上的红色州已经采取措施，可能会减少大学生的投票率。例如，在美国35个要求选民出示某种形式的身份证明来投票的州中，诸如德克萨斯、南卡罗来纳和田纳西等州不允许选民使用学生证作为身份证明的形式，根据校园投票项目.
艾比·基萨，信息中心副主任塔夫茨大学(Tufts University)关于公民学习和参与(CIRCLE)的研究向梅尔比传达了类似的信息，强调了她的小组鼓励大学生投票的使命。
“我认为，我们只需要决定，作为一个国家，我们是否想帮助人们参与民主，”她说。
在明尼苏达州，圣奥拉夫的所在地，一些立法者正致力于简化选民登记程序。
今年早些时候，民主党州长蒂姆·瓦尔兹签署了一项法律一系列新的立法除其他外，当居民注册驾照或州颁发的身份证时，他们会自动添加到选民名单中，并允许16岁和17岁的人预先注册投票，这意味着他们一旦年满18岁，就会自动添加到选民名单中。
“我们希望成为投票的榜样，”明尼苏达州参议员艾米·克洛布查尔告诉美国广播公司新闻。“我认为部分原因是我们重视公民参与。”
根据圆圈另一种让年轻人更多参与民主进程的方式是在选举中担任投票站工作人员。目前，44个州允许18岁以下的人担任投票站工作人员。
该组织说:“作为投票工作人员的实践经验可以提高年轻人对选举的信任和了解，这是年轻人公民学习和发展中经常缺乏的。”在一份新闻稿中说去年。
距离关键的2024年大选还有一年时间，松塔格思考了这样一个想法，即年轻选民的投票率最终可能会导致美国政策的重大变化，特别是在气候变化等话题上。
“如果每个认为自己的选票无关紧要的人都去投票，我们会看到一场非常不同的选举，”他补充说。
A year out from 2024 elections, eyes turn to youth voter turnout
As theone-year countdown to the 2024 general electionbegins, candidates are looking to the youth vote as a means to grow support.
Building off of 2020 voter turnout, one college campus has become a bastion for a high standard of voter registration.
St. Olaf College in Northfield, Minnesota is home to a student body that turned out to vote at a rate 20% higher than the national average.
According to the school, nearly 88% of eligible students at the school voted in the 2020 election, a stark contrast to the 66% voting rate found at other universities across the country that same year. The latter figure is roughly in line with the national average voter rate, according to theU.S. Census Bureau.
Election ambassadors on St. Olaf's campus approach students year-round looking to combat voter apathy.
Student Elijah Sonntag, who previously served as an election ambassador in 2022, said the role is largely about "being able to make that personal connection, and say, 'Hey, your voice matters.'"
Ambassadors work to increase student body awareness of voter accessibility with stickers, online instructional materials and more. The campus also has its own polling location.
Darartu Musse, another St. Olaf student, said candidate engagement with college campuses could also help inspire the youth vote and inform students.
"Gettingcandidatesor getting representatives to be more engaged with any type of community, including college campuses [and] immigrant communities is one way to increase voter turnout and is a solution for the information gap," she said.
While it is true that college students tend to vote for Democrats more often, Alyssa H. Melby, assistant director for academic civic engagement at St. Olaf College, said that is unrelated to the school's mission.
"We are ensuring that folks understand what their civic rights are and the opportunities to exercise them," Melby said.
As institutions like St. Olaf work to increase voter turnout on college campuses, several historically red states have made moves that could reduce voter turnout among college students. States such as Texas, South Carolina and Tennessee, for example, which are among the 35 U.S. states that require voters to show some form of identification to cast a ballot, do not allow voters to use a student ID as a form of identification,according to the Campus Vote Project.
Abby Kiesa, deputy director of the Center for Information& Research on Civic Learning and Engagement, or CIRCLE, at Tufts University, echoed a similar message to Melby, emphasizing her group's mission to encourage college students to vote.
"I think that we just need to make a decision about whether we as a country want to help people participate in democracy or not," she said.
In Minnesota, where St. Olaf is located, some lawmakers are working to make the voter registration process simpler.
Earlier this year, Democratic Gov. Tim Walz signed into law aslate of new legislationthat, among other things, automatically adds residents to the voter rolls when they register for a driver's license or state-issued ID, and allows 16 and 17-year-olds to preregister to vote, meaning they will be automatically added to the voter rolls once they turn 18.
"We want to be a model for voting," Minnesota Sen. Amy Klobuchar told ABC News. "And I think part of that is we value civic participation."
According to CIRCLE, another way young people can become more engaged in the democratic process is to serve as a poll worker in elections. Currently, 44 states allow people under the age of 18 to serve as poll workers.
"The hands-on experience of serving as poll workers can improve young people's trust in and knowledge about elections, which is often lacking in young people's civic learning and development," the organizationsaid in a press releaselast year.
With a year to go before the pivotal 2024 elections, Sonntag reflected on the idea that young voter turnout might eventually result in major changes to U.S. policy, especially when it comes to topics like climate change.
"If every single person who thought their vote didn't matter went and voted, we could see a very different election," he added.
