By Ryan Siegel and Spencer Davidson
Situated in the heart of the New River Valley The Town of Blacksburg and Virginia Tech’s Campus overlap. What does this mean for the people who live there, and how do the two administrative divisions work together to solve potential conflicts?
The News Feed Reports.
Town of Blacksburg Councilman Liam Watson is the youngest ever elected to the position in the history of the town at 24 years old. Since being voted in as a write-in-candidate, Watson has been busy in his first term. Hear what he has to say in an exclusive profile with The News Feed’s Spencer Davidson.
In this edition of The News Feed Podcast, staff writers Ryan Siegel and Spencer Davidson discuss influencer appearances on the campaign trail in 2024, the larger implications of research and influencers in the political sphere, and speak with Dr. Brandi Watkins about research on political influencers.
Complicated regulations and forms may be confusing during the voting process, especially when voters aren’t present on election day.
This is everything voters need to know about absentee ballots in Virginia.
Election season has reached Blacksburg, and so have yard signs.
The timing of their appearance a month before the election is no coincidence.
This election season the Virginia Tech School of Visual Arts (SOVA) is joining a larger campaign headed by the American Institute of Graphic Arts (AIGA) to create non-partisan Get Out The Vote flyers. The flyers are meant to creatively catch the viewer’s attention while also encouraging a larger participatory democracy.
Why it matters: Beginning in 1998, AIGA’s oldest initiative is to apply design tools and thinking to drive civic engagement.
-The initiative is meant to make interactions between the U.S. government and its citizens more understandable, efficient and trustworthy while also encouraging designers to become more vocal citizens.
Driving the news: The 2024 presidential election is a narrow race and is being called by many outlets “the most important election of our generation”
-Virginia is historically a battleground state and with much emphasis being placed on campaigning within the commonwealth, the messaging from both the Donald Trump and Kamala Harris campaigns must reach eligible voters.
What they’re saying: Meaghan Dee, chair of graphic design at SOVA, believes that “Voting is your chance to make your voice heard,” and that registering is the first step.
-The graphic design chair also believes that a larger number of actual voters will lead to a more reflective democracy.
-As an artist and designer, she uses her ‘voice’ through the images she creates. She hopes students feel inspired to use their skills to express their opinions and inspire others to take positive action.
-She highlighted deadlines that she believes to be important such as the first Tuesday of November 2024 for in-person general election voting.
-Further, she believes it important to research the candidates and the issues they support in order to make an informed decision on election day.
Yes but, Dee was unsure of the number of Virginia Tech students participating in this year’s initiative despite encouraging them to do so.
-While word of mouth and tangible graphic initiatives are difficult to translate into an explanation of actual election outcomes, the lack of participation in this year’s drive may decrease the number of students registering to vote.
-The lack of participation may also explain why there is a continued effort across multiple organizations to increase student voter registration ahead of the 2024 presidential election.
Flashback: VT Engage: The Center for Leadership and Service Learning publishes statistics of students registered to vote in presidential elections.
-in 2020 this number was expressed as 90.7% of eligible students were registered to vote and of those students 72.8% actually voted.
-Virginia Tech is nationally recognized as a Voter Friendly Campus for 2023-2024 through a partnership between the Fair Election Center’s Campus Vote Project and the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators’ NASPA Lead Initiative.
-The AIGA initiative has been popular at Virginia Tech in recent elections with nine students submitting posters to the project in 2020.
What we’re watching:
-The 2020 election was largely seen as a referendum on Donald Trump’s administrative policies and the 2024 presidential election was set to be a rematch and referendum on the Biden administration.
-In 2024 the electoral playing field has shifted to the potential for newer and younger leadership in Kamala Harris with much of the campaigning taking place through online communication tools.
-As Trump lost the 2020 election despite attempts to overturn the results the public may be more confident in a win for Harris and as a result are less enthusiastic about campaigning on her behalf.
-With initiatives being spearheaded by Virginia Tech schools, professors and independent political action committees it is yet to be seen whether the number of students registered to vote will increase or decrease.
-The factors at play include enthusiasm for party platforms, civic duty and apathetic beliefs for the difference of one vote.
By Spencer Davidson
Virginia Tech students are being encouraged to register to vote before Oct. 15 from a variety of groups on campus.
While the issue appears to be a concern of student engagement, some voter registration groups have additional goals during classroom visits.
Traditional grassroots campaigns spread the word to encourage students to register ahead of elections, whether for a primary, congressional or presidential race. Recently, however, organized campaigns such as NextGen America have suggested students register in Blacksburg.
The organization’s representatives have visited Virginia Tech classrooms to present an argument: Students spend anywhere from nine to 12 months of the year in the town limits. They should vote for a delegate who represents the students as equally as town residents. So, Virginia Tech students should register to vote in Blacksburg.
Peyton Dofflemyer, a Virginia Tech senior majoring in graphic design, has not formally affiliated with any of the local “Get Out the Vote” campaigns but has taken it upon herself to encourage her peers to vote regardless.
“It feels like there’s a lot of apathy surrounding the idea of voting, especially for younger or newer voters,” said Dofflemyer. “These feelings are what hold some people back from casting their ballots.”
While campaigning personally, Dofflemyer is also part of a movement in the Virginia Tech School of Visual Arts to create and distribute informational flyers around campus encouraging students to register.
“I think enthusiasm is important, and being a voice that’s coming from someone else who’s in the same boat as you can really be what pushes some people to see the value in it,” Dofflemyer said.
Dofflemyer also believes that it is important to raise voter awareness as early as possible, as it can encourage students to participate in state and local elections. She further argues these elections are more important in terms of voter turnout.
According to VT Engage, the university-affiliated Center for Leadership and Service Learning, which compiles statistics about student voter registration, during the 2020 presidential election, while 90.7% of students eligible were registered to vote, only 80.4% actually voted.
In 2016 VT Engage reported a 73% actual voting rate for the presidential election, and while this demonstrates a 15.1% increase, other groups are aiming to fill the remaining 9.3% for the 2024 election.
According to Dr. Cayce Myers, a communication law professor in the Virginia Tech School of Communication, voter registration groups often aggressively target large lecture-based classrooms in order to yield a higher return of voters.
Myers also believes that while faculty are supportive of the push to encourage students to register, they may not be aware of the underlying motivations of the organizations that target such classrooms, or that they have a right to say no to such visits.
NextGen America is an organization that aims to improve voter registration on college campuses including Virginia Tech. The organization is paid for in part by NextGen Climate Action Committee, a super PAC which aims to raise awareness of climate-related issues among young voters.
According to their mission statement, “NextGen America is the nation’s largest youth voting organization, using innovative digital and field strategies to turn out young voters in key states. We’re empowering the largest and most diverse generation in American history through voter education, registration, and mobilization. At NextGen, we share lessons learned with the broader progressive community to build a stronger and more effective democracy. By working with young people across the country, we’re shaping a government that respects us, reflects us, and represents us — not just for an election cycle but for generations to come.”
In classroom visits, NextGen America has used tactics such as having representatives visit early in the instruction period. The representatives share their platform for registering to vote in Blacksburg. Following class the representatives wait in the hallway to collect completed registration forms from students.
Once students are registered to vote, their name, address, and party affiliation becomes public. According to Virginia Code section 24.2-406, the Virginia Department of Elections can “furnish at reasonable price” lists of persons who voted at any primary, special, or general election held in the preceding four years to political party committees, and political action committees which can only collect such records for political purposes only.
The statute additionally cites that the Commonwealth can sell “members of the public or a nonprofit organization seeking to promote voter participation and registration by means of a communication or mailing without intimidation or pressure exerted on the recipient, for that purpose only.”
“I’ve always had an awareness for voter registration and there’s also been leveraging of voter registration drives in classrooms,” said Myers. “I think it largely is presented as a nonpartisan drive, although there are questions around whether or not it actually is partisan, and that’s to benefit one party or another.”
Myers also believes this raises concerns of transparency regarding political speech on campus, as to whether the groups are truly nonpartisan or a political group encouraging a political registration for a certain outcome, though he also notes that classroom visits must be conducted with permission from the professor instructing the course.
“I think that the university has to stay aware of this as a movement,” said Myers. “It’s an evolving sort of movement and in the past, there have been very aggressive attempts to do voter registration on campus by some groups with the faculty and allowing them to come to their classes.”
NextGen America did not return requests for comment at the time of publishing, however, Myers has experienced requests for such visits in his classes and has declined to accept visits from voter registration organizations. Myers elaborated on the ethical issues raised by such visits.
“What I think is concerning to some people is organizations that are super PACs that may be more Democratic leaning than Republican, but it could be either side– that disrupts the educational mission of the class,” Myers said.
While the university has not addressed the issue directly, VT Engage provides resources on how to register, which voting method to use, upcoming election information, candidate information, and local governance information for university students.
Additionally, students can view voter registration guides or utilize a personalized response form for questions not frequently asked.
“The 2024 election season is a very tight election nationally,” Myers said. “Voter registration is a big part of changing the votes. It could be either side doing the registration because we have such a razor-thin margin in November, and I think folks are very aware of that on both sides.”
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