Every Vote (Still) Counts

Today is National Voter Registration Day. Harvard College and Harvard’s Institute of Politics have launched a non-partisan voter registration drive on campus that we hope results in all Harvard students going to the polls in 2016.

Participants in this effort will reach out through email, from information tables and by knocking on doors, urging their fellow students to register via Turbo Vote, an online registration website.

In addition to exercising their most fundamental democratic right and having a voice in choosing the next American leaders, Harvard’s student voters can also help reverse a disturbing trend of low youth turnout and disinterest in recent elections.

Last Fall, a national IOP poll of citizens age 18 to 29 correctly predicted weak turnout in the 2014 midterm elections, reporting that only 26% of young voters said they “definitely” would vote. The IOP also found that younger voters’ trust in public institutions was at a five-year low and that cynicism toward the political process was higher than ever. According to estimates following the election, just 21% of young people actually voted.

We understand how the current political landscape—particularly gridlock in Washington and its impact on effective government—can motivate discouragement. But in that context, we also know how vitally important it is that citizens exercise their hard-won freedom to elect responsible leaders. If we walk away from our right to vote, we imperil our future and our country.

We also encourage students to uphold Harvard’s long tradition of citizen-participation and involvement in U.S. politics. To help ensure that voting booths remain accessible to all Americans and that no citizen’s right to vote is inhibited, every citizen should be encouraged to register and go to the polls.

Harvard has long been at the heart of American government and politics. Nearly one in six American presidents had a Harvard degree. A huge number of our alums have held public office and served as leaders at all levels of government. Most recently, Harvard grad Elise Stefanik '06, a former IOP vice president, was elected at 30 as the youngest woman ever to serve in Congress.

Rep. Stefanik took up her duties in a Congress that also includes: Mia Love, the first African American Republican woman elected to the House and Tim Scott, the first African American senator elected from the south since Reconstruction. They represent a new generation of leadership, they are the future of politics, and they serve because men and women who knew and supported them made the effort to vote.

Nearly a half-century ago, former First Lady Jacqueline Kennedy drove the creation of the IOP as a living memorial to President John F. Kennedy. At the time, Washington political reporter David Broder wrote of Mrs. Kennedy’s determination that “the ethic of public service that her husband [...] embodied and expressed, must be kept alive for successor generations” and that he would be “remembered for inspiring the belief that government and its handmaiden, politics, really are the highest of secular callings.”

We hope that every Harvard student will help keep this belief alive by registering to vote.

Gene A. Corbin is Harvard’s Assistant Dean of Student Life for Public Service. Thomas A. Dingman is the Dean of Freshmen and a member of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Margaret "Maggie" A. Williams is the Director of Harvard’s Institute of Politics.