Promoting the Youth Vote in a Global Pandemic: Assessing the Outcomes of Civic Training and Positive Social Pressure to Vote

Young voters are one of the most overlooked-and negatively represented-populations in US elections, and their representation and inclusion in this upcoming presidential election is at an even greater stake than ever before. Their voter turnout in the 2020 presidential election will undoubtedly be affected by the ongoing global pandemic for two primary reasons: First, the informational and institutional hurdles that often preclude turnout likely will be amplified, as campaigns limit person-to-person mobilization contacts and election rules change to accommodate social distancing. Second, young voters will likely be disenfranchised due to their lack of permanent address/unstable residence, in no small part due to universities potentially closing at a moment's notice, similar to spring 2020. Given these challenges, an important and pressing concern for the democratic belonging of young voters is: How will Covid-19 impact the participation of young voters in the 2020 presidential election? We propose a field experiment to mobilize young voters amidst these rapidly changing electoral contexts and students' personal living situations. We will improve on our previously successfully 2018 mobilization efforts with an experimental design that is adaptable no matter whether the university remains in-person, online, or adopts a hybrid model. We will test whether informational or social pressure treatments about the election will increase official voter turnout among first-year students, and their roommates, in a university-wide first-year writing course who are eligible voters enrolled at a major Midwestern university into our sample.