Tennessee Secretary of State Tre Hargett has announced that Middle Tennessee State University, Northeast State Community College and Carson-Newman University are the winners of this year’s Tennessee College Voter Registration Competition.
More than 2,000 students registered to vote at the 48 schools participating in the September contest, according to a news release from Hargett’s office. MTSU registered 381 new voters during the competition.
The competition took place during September in honor of National Voter Registration Month. Every college and university in the state had the chance to compete by registering the most students to vote and to spread awareness of the campaign on social media using the hashtag #GoVoteTN, along with their school-specific hashtag.
The winning schools — a four-year public college/university, a two-year community/junior college, and a private college/university — were selected based on the number of new students registered and their social media presence (both weighted by student enrollment), as well as their campus creativity in promoting the college voter registration drive.
“Participation in the electoral process is essential to strong citizenship,” Hargett said. “I’m grateful for the nearly 50 Tennessee colleges and universities that participated in our annual competition. Congratulations to all of the students who played a part in registering their fellow students to vote.”
In 2018, the average voting rate among campuses in the study was 39.1 percent, nearly 20 percentage points higher than 2014’s average turnout rate of 19.7 percent.
MTSU’s increases were even more impressive:
• MTSU’s student voting rate rose 23 percentage points (compared to the last interim election, 2014), which equates to a 156% increase in student voter participation in 2018 compared to 2014.
• MTSU student voter participation was 37.7% in 2018, slightly below the national average of 39.1%.
• Through such efforts as MTSU’s #VoteTogether party at the polls, the percentage of MTSU students who were registered who also actually voted increased 30 percentage points, a 135% jump in 2018.
