Students across campus are preparing and educating each other to get ready for Election Day on Tuesday, Nov. 8. Manuela Hill-Muñoz, director of Innovation, Creative Content and Changemaking at St. Thomas, is leading a group of students to educate voters and raise voter registration rates on campus as Election Day draws closer.

Hill-Muñoz’s group, Civic Engagement, Voter Education & Advocacy Task Force, consists of 12 St. Thomas students devoted to the cause. Hill-Muñoz believes college students have a strong obligation to vote because their generation can be capable of making the most change.

“If you don’t express what you want, even if you don’t think you’re going to make a difference, you’re stuck,” Hill-Muñoz said.

CEVEA has held events on campus to encourage students to register to vote. These efforts include handing out free pizza, and many professors allowed CEVEA to come to their classes to talk with students directly.

Hill-Muñoz cites misinformation and a lack of social pressure as reasons why students don’t register to vote.

“Voting is social, so students who, in a way, drag their friends because they really care, then their friends really care,” Hill-Muñoz said. “I think it’s a combination of ‘I don’t really know if this matters,’ (and) ‘Maybe I have some misinformation. … I 100% believe if my friends do it, then I will do it.’”

St. Thomas participates in the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge, which is designed to track voting statistics on college campuses. St. Thomas earned a Platinum Campus status for its voter turnout in the past two elections.

During the 2020 election, ALL IN’s report indicated that 89% of eligible St. Thomas students were registered, and 92% of those registered voted that year. CEVEA expects a decrease from 2020 due to this year being a midterm election, but the group hopes to see improvement from 2018’s midterm elections when only 80% of eligible students were registered to vote and just 77% of registered voters showed up at the polls.

Hill-Muñoz explained that a guaranteed way to raise voting rates at the university is for students to create a plan for how to get to the polls on Election Day. She noted that it is important for students to know that if they live north of Summit Avenue, they vote in McNeely Hall; if they live south of Summit Avenue, their polling location is the Groveland Recreation Center.

CEVEA is not the only group of students involved with the political process on campus. Both the St. Thomas College Republicans and College Democrats have been hosting events to share information on candidates in their respective parties.

Junior Ben Hackett, president of the College Democrats, said that discourse and respect across party lines is an important first step in political engagement.

“We should focus on positivity and not all these negative things because that’s a major thing why people don’t vote,” Hackett said.

Hackett would like to see more from students beyond voting.

“Once they’re engaged, it would be cool to have them volunteer–to have them stand up for what their values are,” Hacket said.

This sentiment is not solely from one party, as junior Nisha Kimber, president of the College Republicans, wants people to know College Republicans club goes beyond supporting Republican candidates.

“Our club is not merely to get people in office,” Kimber said. “It’s also to get people to understand why they believe what they believe. We want to make sure people have a place where they can come and be with like-minded people and enjoy their company, but also learn and be able to defend what they think.”

Adam Mueller can be reached at muel7541@stthomas.edu.