Local Government for Student Engagement #SocialMedia #NormalElect

By Mary Sorenson, Graduate Student and Instructor, Illinois State University

Housing many eligible voters in Normal, IL, Illinois State University (ISU) is taking strides to engage the student population in the local election that will take place next month.

Last Wednesday night, the university hosted the Local Municipal Election Forum, bringing three mayoral and six city council candidates to campus to discuss plans for the community. Hosted by the Student Government Association, College Democrats, College Republicans, the American Democracy Project, Heartland Community College, and the McLean County League of Women Voters, the event drew in a crowd of over 200 community members, inclusive of the student population.

To help encourage student participation, graduate students enrolled in a Pedagogy of Civic and Political Engagement course led and participated in a local tweet-up, asking audience members to share comments and questions throughout the forum. Using the hashtag #NormalElect, tweets during the event were displayed on a large screen in order to promote participation. In addition to handwritten questions, those asked through Twitter were also presented to, and asked by, the forum moderator. To start off the night, ISU graduate student Richard Green (@RadioRichG) tweeted, “Hey everyone in the audience…feel free to express your views, opinions, and questions here. #NormalElect.” Throughout the two-hour forum, over 25 users shared over 240 tweets with audience members and candidates.

Mayoral candidate JeVaugh Martin embraced the tweet-up and engaged his audience through his personal Twitter account throughout the forum. A first-year ISU student stated that he noticed Martin utilizing a mobile device before he noticed his Twitter handle appear on the big screen. Being new to politics, he said, “It made me feel like he really cared about who showed up to hear him speak about his community.” In addition to following the social media feed, Martin later tweeted, “#NormalElect more questions for Town of Normal candidate JeVaughn Martin? He will answer your questions RIGHT NOW!”

Throughout the forum, many students tweeted questions to candidates regarding how they would engage the student population if elected into office. Additionally, many users asked questions regarding candidate use of technology and social media to engage their community. Co-chair of ISU’s ADP, Steve Hunt (@skhunt2), tweeted, “#NormalElect what about using social media to listen to Normal citizens? Too much of the focus is on messaging.” This message was followed by ISU graduate student Mary Sorenson (@MarSorenson) quoting a candidate while adding personal input, “’Having the page is not enough…’ –so true! You must be active if you want to gain attention from the community #NormalElect.” Both tweets, along with many others, provide insight to candidates that not only should they be sending messages via social media but they should simultaneously listen to the messages from their audience.

Another ISU student (@mlawler82) excitedly tweeted, “THEY’RE ANSWERING MY QUESTION ABOUT SOCIAL MEDIA!!!!! DOES THIS MEAN IM FAMOUS NOW?!? #normalelect.” Her tweet, complete with dramatic effect, showcased the positive impact that social media can have on political engagement, especially for the younger generation. This particular tweet sparked a conversation among many users who indicated similar positive feelings about having their questions become part of the forum’s conversation. Social media allow students (and other community members) to have a voice that may otherwise not be heard in the political world, on both the local and national stages.

Through local elections, institutions have the ability to connect their students to candidates within reach who can become more than a name on a lawn sign or bumper sticker. By encouraging students to participate in local politics and providing multiple mediums for communication, communities of voters both young and old have the opportunity to come together as a more unified voice. Newcomers to the political scene as well as veteran voters desire to see change for similar issues such as green initiatives, local business development, roads, and housing. The use of social media such as Twitter may enhance civic engagement for a variety of community members, 140 characters at a time.

Campus Spotlight: Mock Elections at Georgia College

By Stephanie South, Program Associate, AASCU

Greg Kaufman, the American Democracy Project Coordinator at Georgia College, kept hearing from faculty that it seemed there was not nearly as much interest in the 2012 Presidential race as there had been in 2008. He offered a challenge to his first-year students: Generate some campaign activity.

And generate they did.

The American Democracy Project at Georgia College held its 2012 mock election on October 23 and 24 and gathered 770 votes from participants during the two-day voting period. Those coming to the faux polls were allowed to cast their vote for the next President of the United States and to indicate the issue that they believed would dominate the 2012 election.

The results were as follows:

Courtesy of The Colonnade, Georgia College

Kaufman said that many students who participated in the mock election were first-time voters and seemed motivated vote in the November 2012 election. He had the opportunity to teach first-year students, upper-class, and graduate students and said that at every level, engaged learning in community contexts makes a positive impression on students.

“One hour of being deeply engaged in learning and serving in a community context is worth more than a few class sessions,” said Kaufman. “The opportunity for students to interact with community members over issues of national importance makes citizenship relevant and helps students imagine their capacity to be civic agents.”

Learn more about ADP at Georgia College here.

ADP Debate Watch Tweet-Up Guide

Mary Sorenson, a communications graduate student and instructor at Illinois State University, who brought us this October 2012 blog post about the Tweet-Ups, has compiled a report of the ISU and national ADP 2012 Presidential Debate Watch Tweet-Ups (co-sponsored by ADP’s Political Engagement Project and eCitizenship initiatives).

The ADP Presidential Debate Series Tweet-UP report, which can be downloaded here, describes:

• the Debate Watch Tweet-Ups, including ISU’s involvement
• online tools that were used to facilitate and analyze the Tweet-Ups
• strategies for student involvement
• sample tweets
• reflections on the tweet-ups
• potential future directions

As we begin to plan for a 2013 State of the Union ADP national Tweet-up, we hope you’ll consider how to politically engage students using Twitter and other social media platforms.

Thank you, Mary!

Election Day Reflection 2012

By Jen Domagal-Goldman, ADP National Manager

On Tuesday, November 6th — just over a week ago — I awoke at 4 a.m. in order to keep one of the personal civic commitments I made for 2012. (You can read a previous blog post about ADP’s civic commitments here.) It was dark and cold as I walked the length of my cul de sac to join other members of my Hume Springs neighborhood in Alexandria,VA at the Cora Kelly Community Center.

Why was I awake so early? I made a personal civic commitment — read: New Year’s resolution intended to benefit my community — to volunteer in a non-partisan manner on Election Day (something I hadn’t done since I was in graduate school during the 2004 election).

I signed up at my county election board office,  attended a three-hour training in late October, and was sworn in as an election officer at about 5 a.m. on Election Day. I appeared to be the youngest of the Election officials in my precinct (and in my training session), and enjoyed meeting other members of my community as deeply committed to strengthening our democratic processes and ensuring individuals’ rights to vote were met.

I spent approximately 16 hours meeting, welcoming, and thanking fellow members of my community as they stood in line to complete and cast their ballots. At the voter information station I explained how the new paper ballots (which would be electronically scanned) worked as well as the new VA Voter ID law (which, while requiring either a voter registration card or some other form of ID — including, but not limited to a drivers license, Student ID card from a VA educational institution, passport, government employee ID, is relatively less constraining than many of the new voter ID laws sweeping the nation).

My favorite role, however, was handing out “I voted” stickers — not only to voters, but often to their young children who accompanied them to the polls. Did you know that one of the best ways to ensure young voters exercise their right to vote is to bring the to the polls as children? Maybe that’s why I’m so committed to acting on my right and responsibility to participate in our electoral process and to ensure that fellow citizens are also able to exercise their right to vote (see embedded photo of me “voting” with my mom and younger sister in the 1980s in Central New York).

At the end of the day I was exhausted, yet proud of myself and my community. I am equally impressed with and proud of the Election 2012 educational and programming activities of ADP member campuses — together we helped to register and get-out-to-vote a population of politically informed and engaged college students. You can learn more about various campus election programming in these previous blog posts.

I encourage ADP campuses to consider ways of encouraging students to volunteer as election workers in the future. For me it was a great learning experience and a fabulous way to contribute to my community and our democracy. (Check out Missouri Western State University’s Poll Worker training guide.)