We focused our out-of-state college student efforts primarily on two college campuses, specifically Emory University and Georgia Institute of Technology. Both of these campuses have a high percentage of out of state students registered and matriculating. The majority of students we encountered were completely unaware of the Georgia law allowing them to choose their state and county of voter registration, selecting between their home address, or the address where they are attending college, though obviously not both.
Georgia was a pioneer in giving college students this right, during its Vote 90 election-year efforts to engage young voters. Though this statute is now 30 years old and every other state had followed Georgia’s lead, awareness of this option remains incredibly low among most college students.
ONVR had great success in educating these students to engage in the process and to register.
College students and their families spend tens of thousands of dollars on tuition, pay sales and payroll taxes, often rent or lease property and live in Georgia, excluding occasional visits home or vacationing. This Georgia statute allows and encourages these students to become even more engaged in their college communities, and ONVR is proud to be playing a role in this process.
Since mid-November 2020:
- ONVR provided hundreds of students paper handouts and approved Secretary of State forms for both registering to vote and obtaining their absentee ballot for the January 5, 2021 runoff elections.
- ONVR emailed and texted interested students these same forms and instructions as PDF attachments so they could provide this information to their interested friends and classmates.
- On the Georgia Tech campus, ONVR worked with the office of Greek Life and the Executive Vice President of the Collegiate Panhellenic Council to distribute a similar email to all fraternity and sorority presidents on campus, with the intention of distribution to all Greek Life student members. We heard back from several chapter presidents that these materials were later shared with numerous other campus clubs and organizations at Georgia Tech.