On a crisp September morning, a 19-foot Airstream trailer, colorfully painted with slogans to promote voting, was parked on the main drag in downtown Delaware. Students at Ohio Wesleyan University saw it as they walked to class, walking through a shower of bubbles generated by a machine. While an upbeat soundtrack of pop music played through an amplifier, volunteers with the League of Women Voters of Ohio, armed with clipboards, approached students, asking them if they were registered to vote.
Jen Miller, the executive director of the league, said her group is doing a voter registration tour to 15 colleges throughout Ohio until the registration deadline on Oct. 7, encouraging students to vote.
“We're literally just making sure that they are registered to vote. And if they want to request an absentee ballot, if they know how to do so, that if they want to vote in person, they have the right ID," Miller said.
Ashley Biser, co-director for the Arneson Institute for Practical Politics at OWU, said the university is working to accommodate students who want to vote and making sure their questions are answered.
“We're really invested in making sure that they have a good understanding of what the issues are that are at stake in the election, so that when they go into the polls or fill out their ballots that they have an understanding of what they care about and how the different candidates fit with that," Biser said.
What the students are saying
On this day, sophomore Ian Sander is taking a break from his three majors in microbiology, pre-dentistry, and psychology to register to vote.
“There's a lot of different issues, but climate change is one that I'm really passionate about," Sander said. "It's important that we protect the world around us and our environment so that we can have that same environment in the future."
Senior Natalie Geyer said human rights are her big issue.
“Definitely a lot of women's rights issues that directly affects me, but also ones that don't directly affect me, like LGBTQ issues and issues for people of color," Geyer said. "I just want everyone to be able to have their rights.
Human rights issues are also an important issue for sophomore Gwendolyn Acheampong.
“I feel like a lot of women’s rights are very important because I feel like that's been stripped away lately and questioned a lot," Acheampong said. "And when it comes to social issues in places like Gaza, I think it's very important to talk about that as a community."
Freshman Daphne E. Nanka-Bruce said as a US citizen, she wants to vote on issues that can directly affect people coming to the US.
“Social issues that have to do with racism, sexism, gender issues. I want everyone to feel safe, happy and welcome in America," Nanka-Bruce said.
OWU’s Biser said she knows college students are among hardest voting blocks to get fully engaged in the process.
“I think we're pretty typical in that sense. Students are nervous about talking about politics. They don't love conflict. And, so trying to help them see how politics can actually be important to their lives is a hard challenge," Biser said. "And so but we're doing our best to help them see the stakes in this election, as well as the ways in which they can get involved," Biser said.
Exit polls from last year show only about a third of younger voters in Ohio cast ballots, because of their schedules, a lack of information about how to do it or something else.
Junio Melody Rapela said she knows it might be hard to energize her peers to become involved in the political process but she added that difficulty shouldn’t be confused with apathy of young voters.
"We do care. A lot of us do care," Rapela said. "I myself might not be as vocal as some people are, but I do care. It's my life as well. It's all of our lives."
The voter registration tour will hit all of Ohio‘s biggest colleges and universities. It’s at Baldwin Wallace and Cleveland State Universities on Monday. It continues through the first week of October, ending at Kent State University on Oct. 7, the day before the voter registration deadline.
