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The Andrew Goodman Foundation (AGF) is excited to be launching our 2022 Campaign to the Polls, including 8 major milestones, in preparation for the Midterm Election on Tuesday, November 8th! The Andrew Goodman Foundation’s 2022 Campaign to the Polls is designed to activate and mobilize young voters, who are part of the Andrew Goodman Vote Everywhere program and beyond, to make their voices heard at the ballot box. Through our campaign, we hope to reach 875,000 young voters, increase the voting rate of the Andrew Goodman Network from 2018 to 2022 by seven percent, and spotlight twenty-five student democratic engagement stories surrounding the campaign.

“These Midterm Elections will have enormous implications for our country and particularly for young people, and our Andrew Goodman Ambassadors are on the ground registering voters, facilitating plans to vote, collecting testimonials, and working to institutionalize voting access to get their peers to the polls,” says Caroline Smith, AGF’s Interim Director of Programs.

The campaign began with Constitution Day on September 17th. Andrew Goodman Campus Teams organized together in celebration of the signing of the United States Constitution by hosting parades, learning activities, and more. 

The next national civic holiday was National Voter Registration Day (NVRD) on September 20th, a coordinated day of massive voter registration efforts by volunteers and organizations nationwide. Campuses celebrated NVRD by hosting tables with food and activities, organizing voter registration rallies, co-sponsoring events with Secretaries of State, and presenting in classes, just to name a few example events. Throughout the course of our campaign, we aim to register 10,000 young people to vote, and NVRD served as an exciting launchpad.

Next up was National Voter Education Week (NVEW) from October 3rd-7th, five days dedicated to five actions to ensure voters are informed and equipped with the necessary tools to vote. In these five days, voters were presented with the opportunity to locate their polling place, fully understand who and what is on their ballot, make a plan to vote remotely or in person, and to engage their peers to get involved. During NVEW, students work to project voter information from all corners of campus, from athletic departments to residence halls, Deans’ offices to Greek organizations, and everything in between.

To continue the momentum, AGF is launching Student Vote Choice, a national campaign to promote student voter accessibility to vote in person or by mail and to ensure that these ballots are counted. The campaign is joined by partner organizations All Voting is Local (AVIL), Anti-Defamation League (ADL), Deliver My Vote (DMV), Hillel International, Institute for Democracy & Higher Education (IDHE), and the National Vote At Home Institute (NVAHI).  

With November 8th quickly approaching, the Campaign to the Polls will continue on by encouraging a goal of 2,500 voters to pledge and make a plan to vote as part of our final stretch of get-out-the-vote efforts.

The next civic holiday on Friday, October 28th will be Vote Early Day, a nonpartisan movement of media companies, businesses, nonprofits, election administrators, campuses, and creatives working to ensure all Americans have the tools to vote early. Our goal is to have held 350 events across the Andrew Goodman Network by this point in our campaign. Many of these events will occur on Vote Early Day itself, as our campuses are coordinating walks and rides to off-campus early voting sites, celebrations at their on-campus early voting sites, absentee ballot parties, and more. 

Election Hero Day is on Monday, November 7th — the day before the Midterm Elections! On this day, we will celebrate the importance and work of poll workers and election administration teams across the nation. This year, our hope is to recruit 100 poll workers to join the growing force of young leaders in civic engagement. 

After Election Day and to wrap up our 2022 Campaign to the Polls, AGF will host an informative Stakeholder Briefing. The briefing’s purpose is to serve as a touchpoint for connection between our staff, board, supporters, and the Andrew Goodman Network. The interview-style briefing will have a focus on highlighting AGF’s past, present, and future as we brainstorm the ways in which our key stakeholders can continue to champion our initiatives and young voters as we look toward the 2024 Presidential Election.

“We created this 2022 Campaign to the Polls in an effort to pull together both the quantitative and qualitative work that our Andrew Goodman Campuses are doing,” says Caroline Smith. “We are already amazed by the way our teams hit the ground running on the day they returned to campus this fall, and we are so excited to see the final results of this campaign.”

The Andrew Goodman Foundation is committed to ensuring our network has the necessary resources and tools to get out the vote to continue making young voices and votes a powerful force in our democracy. Consider making a donation to support our 2022 Campaign to the Polls to help us build a just, sustainable future for the young people here today and those to come.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Mia Matthews is the Program and Communications Manager at The Andrew Goodman Foundation. In her position, she works with student leaders and in communications surrounding their work. She currently lives in Orlando, Florida.