CEO Update: Let's go register a boatload of young people.

Now the good news: we still have time to register a boatload of young people, specifically college students.  I’ve been running large-scale campus registration and turnout programs since 2018, with great results (both at Vote.org and now at VoteAmerica).  Of all the programs I’ve ever run, going back 15 years or so, the campus program is the one that produces inexpensive, repeatable results. Or to be more direct: this program prints votes.  It’s a money in, votes out sort of campaign.  

Click here to read the full proposal.  It’s short. 

Here’s the backstory: In 2018, I placed full color, full page ads on the back of 580 college newspapers.  This program cost under $1 million dollars, and allowed us to reach 10.1 million students — 40% of whom were students of color.  This campaign lasted for a single week, but still had measurable results.  Turnout on these campuses was 2.0 percentage points higher than on our control campuses [2].  These results were even better than what we expected, and demonstrated that students respond well to campus media advertising. 

Then in 2019, I ran a randomized controlled trial in partnership with Professor Chris Mann, targeting students in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Kentucky.  This campaign ran for 12 weeks, and involved multiple communications channels.  Turnout was 8 percentage points higher on our target campuses than on the control campuses – demonstrating again that students respond well to campus advertising [3]  This 2019 program was the most effective turnout campaign I’ve ever been a part of.  

Click here to see costs per campus for a full week of advertising.  We’ve gone ahead and prioritized the schools for you based on the competitiveness of the district as a whole.  If you want to get fancy, you can see the cost for an entire state by editing the first tab. 

Let’s go register and turnout some young voters!

Debra