Student voting at Washington State University (WSU) was up in last year’s midterm election, increasing to 41.5% in 2018 from a rate of 18.7% in 2014. This means that system-wide, 10,999 students voted in 2018 compared to 4,607 in 2014. Faculty, staff and students can find registration deadlines and links related to democratic engagement at https://cce.wsu.edu/cougsvote/
This increase in the voting rate reflects the work of the Cougs Vote Coalition, a group of students, faculty, staff, and community partners from across the WSU statewide system and coordinated by the Center for Civic Engagement. Key partners in the coalition include the Associated Students of Washington State University, WSU Libraries, the Pullman League of Women’s Voters, and dozens of others.
Washington State University’s voting data is based on the National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement (NSLVE), conducted by Institute for Democracy and Higher Education (IDHE) at Tufts University, which is the only national study of college-student voting. It is based on the voting records of more than 10 million students at more than 1,000 colleges and universities in all 50 states and the District of Columbia; IDHE does not receive any information that could individually identify students or how they voted. The study provides reports to participating colleges and universities, like Washington State University, which use them to support political learning and civic engagement, as well as to identify and address gaps in political and civic participation.
CONTACT: Ben Calabretta (ben.calabretta@wsu.edu) Center for Civic Engagement
