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In CT, a push to get college students to vote – and staff the polls – during this year's election

From left to right: With UConn student government workers Caitlyn Burgess and Ahmad Al Zouabi, UConn student Sean Dunn registers to vote inside Gamble Pavilion September 17, 2024, under a statue of Donald “Dee” Rowe. The voter registration table was set up during a job fair in Gamble and Al Zouabi said that within 25 minutes after the job fair opened at 11am, “We’ve registered about 25 students so far, which is a good number.”
Mark Mirko
/
Connecticut Public
From left to right: With UConn student government workers Caitlyn Burgess and Ahmad Al Zouabi, UConn student Sean Dunn registers to vote inside Gamble Pavilion September 17, 2024, under a statue of Donald “Dee” Rowe. The voter registration table was set up during a job fair in Gamble and Al Zouabi said that within 25 minutes after the job fair opened at 11am, “We’ve registered about 25 students so far, which is a good number.”

Connecticut election officials are partnering with colleges and universities across the state to get out the vote and train students to be poll workers during the upcoming election.

State leaders gathered at the University of Connecticut in Storrs on Tuesday to mark “National Voter Registration Day” in an effort to get more young people civically engaged.

“Young people can make a huge difference in Connecticut, provided they make their voice heard by voting,” Lt. Gov. Susan Bysiewicz said. “Eighteen to 29-year-olds make up almost 20% of the registered voters in our state. So your impact can be very powerful.”

Ahmad Al Zouabi is part of the Undergraduate Student Government and estimates he has helped register 1,300 people over his past three years at UConn. He and two fellow students on Tuesday were registering voters at a table near the entrance to a job fair taking place inside Gampel Pavilion.

"The fair started at 11 o'clock," Al Zouabi said. "It's now 11:25 and we've registered about 25 students so far, which is a good number."

In addition to efforts to get voters out to the polls, state officials are working with college students to make sure there are enough poll workers during this fall’s election.

Secretary of the State Stephanie Thomas touted the state’s Next Gen Elections program, which pairs students with a mentor and will allow them to work 20 hours at polls during the upcoming election.

The students will be paid for the work, Thomas said.

Outside UConn’s Gampel Pavilion, Connecticut Secretary of State Stephanie Thomas talked about Connecticut’s “Next Gen Elections,” a training program that allowed 40 college students from 12 Connecticut colleges to train as poll workers. 17 of the 40 students are from UConn. “it's not just about addressing our immediate need for poll workers,” said Thomas, “But it's about giving young people a front row seat to the democratic process while they gain real world valuable work experience.
Mark Mirko
/
Connecticut Public
Outside UConn’s Gampel Pavilion, Connecticut Secretary of State Stephanie Thomas talked about Connecticut’s “Next Gen Elections,” a training program that allowed 40 college students from 12 Connecticut colleges to train as poll workers. 17 of the 40 students are from UConn. “it's not just about addressing our immediate need for poll workers,” said Thomas, “But it's about giving young people a front row seat to the democratic process while they gain real world valuable work experience.

“Not only are there poll worker shortages around the nation, and here in Connecticut. But, more and more, registrars of voters are retiring,” Thomas said. “And through the program, 40 students from 11 colleges and universities across Connecticut will learn firsthand all the details around how our elections work.”

Coming soon: Early voting on UConn campus

There’s another way some college students in Connecticut can get involved in the fall elections: by voting early on campus.

Early voting will be available this fall on UConn’s flagship campus.

With approval from the state of Connecticut, the town of Mansfield is providing a second location on the UConn campus. The polling place — in the campus bookstore — will be open to all Mansfield residents but is aimed primarily at providing greater voting access to UConn students, faculty and staff. Voters who cast ballots on campus must be registered to vote in Mansfield.

(Other towns in Connecticut are offering early voting at a single location.)

UConn student body president Lorien Touponse called the on-campus location “empowering.”

“Our classes are really busy and our schedules get really hectic, which means that sometimes you might have a plan to vote, and then you remember, ‘Oh, I have this assignment or this paper or this lab I have to finish, and now I can't vote,’” Touponse said.

This year marks the first time early voting is being offered in Connecticut. Early voting begins statewide on Oct. 21 and runs through Nov. 3.

Learn more

Election Day is Nov. 5. For more details about where to vote and some of the races in play this year, check out Connecticut Public’s voter guide to the 2024 election.

Mark Mirko is Deputy Director of Visuals at Connecticut Public and his photography has been a fixture of Connecticut’s photojournalism landscape for the past two decades. Mark led the photography department at Prognosis, an English language newspaper in Prague, Czech Republic, and was a staff-photographer at two internationally-awarded newspaper photography departments, The Palm Beach Post and The Hartford Courant. Mark holds a Masters degree in Visual Communication from Ohio University, where he served as a Knight Fellow, and he has taught at Trinity College and Southern Connecticut State University. A California native, Mark now lives in Connecticut’s quiet-corner with his family, three dogs and a not-so-quiet flock of chickens.
Patrick Skahill is a reporter and digital editor at Connecticut Public. Prior to becoming a reporter, he was the founding producer of Connecticut Public Radio's The Colin McEnroe Show, which began in 2009. Patrick's reporting has appeared on NPR's Morning Edition, Here & Now, and All Things Considered. He has also reported for the Marketplace Morning Report. He can be reached at pskahill@ctpublic.org.
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