WashU Votes is a student-led committee within the Gephardt Institute that promotes voter engagement and education among undergraduates. By joining, students carry out a broad strategy for voter engagement, which reaches across campus and into the St. Louis community.
“Our core mission in WashU Votes is to help students engage in the political process,” said Sophie Jeffers ‘25, former WashU Votes Outreach Chair. “But the political process spans far beyond the campus of WashU.”
“It has been an increasing priority of the group to get students off campus,” said WashU Votes co-chair Marcellus Thorsen. “A critical part of our civic and voter engagement mission is interacting with the community. We’re working to get involved with the local groups and people who are working to make St. Louis a more civically minded and interconnected place to live.”
WashU Votes has participated in a variety of community events to support voter engagement outreach, all in partnership with local organizations. For example, the group has registered Missourians to vote at the Tower Grove Farmers Market, the SPOT Youth Clinic, and as part of a LUSH Cosmetics nationwide voter registration event. They have also helped those without voter identification obtain them so that they can vote in Missouri.
“WashU, and by extension WashU Votes, needs to serve the greater St. Louis community. These outreach events can be the catalyst for bridging the university and community,” said Jeffers.
“Outreach within WashU Votes is a new venture, but it is something that is crucial to the organization and is an essential part of the civic engagement process.”
Hannah Pignataro, a WashU Votes co-chair, identifies photo ID clinics as an impactful off-campus outreach strategy that the group has participated in. The clinics are conducted alongside the Ashrei Foundation and the St. Francis Xavier College Church.
At these clinics, WashU Votes executive board members help St. Louisans obtain the documents and financial resources needed to apply for birth certificates and Missouri ID cards.
“By doing voter engagement work in the greater St. Louis region, WashU Votes members get the chance to understand how they can maintain civic engagement throughout their lives after college,” said Pignataro. “We can take advantage of the large number of nonprofits in St. Louis to learn from established organizers and immerse ourselves in a community beyond the ‘WashU bubble.’”
As part of their civic engagement work, WashU Votes also attends Naturalization Ceremonies in St. Louis to register new citizens to vote. The group attends these once a month, partnering with the League of Women Voters of Metro St. Louis.
“It is a very fun and positive event, and the new citizens are very excited to register to vote and make their voices heard,” said Jeffers. “I think it serves as a crucial reminder of how many rights citizens are given, especially the right to vote. Through this event, we see how hard people work to achieve the rights citizens sometimes ignore.”
“At the first naturalization ceremony I attended, one of the newly naturalized citizens that we helped register to vote asked to take a group picture with us as we were leaving,” said Thorsen. “This moment really crystallized the impact WashU Votes can have at its best as we work to expand access to one of the greatest civic duties we have, the opportunity to vote.”
“St. Louis is a place full of community, culture, and history. We are still WashU in St. Louis,” said Jeffers. “I think it is very important for all students to get off campus and understand where they are and to not just be a visitor in St. Louis. Additionally, there is only so much you can learn through the classroom.”
“We can theorize how the best political system should work or conjure up ways to engage the public in civic engagement, but in order to apply these thoughts we need to engage within the communities we hope to help.”
WashU Votes is part of the Gephardt Institute’s Engage Democracy pillar, and is supported by generous donations to the Gephardt Institute. If you would like to make a gift to support WashU Votes’ voter engagement efforts on- and off-campus, please click here or contact Stephanie Kurtzman, Executive Director of the Gephardt Institute, at GephardtAdvancement@wustl.edu.