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As students venture away from home to college, they face the decision of whether to maintain their voting registration at home or update it to reflect their campus address — that is, if they’re registered in the first place.

Alyssa Johnson, coordinator of service and outreach for the non-partisan civic engagement group OSU Votes, said after moving to college, some students may choose to stay registered to their home address because they feel a greater affinity and connection to their community’s issues. 

That’s what Anna Moore did. Moore, a third-year in international studies and German, said she will return home to vote early in Cincinnati. She said the Hamilton County Board of Elections is only open one full weekend in October, and joked that she hopes she doesn’t have COVID-19 that weekend.

Moore said she keeps her voter registration in Cincinnati because she is invested in her hometown’s politics and more familiar with Cincinnati’s council members, mayor and general issues than Columbus’.

“I just don’t feel that integrated into the Columbus community,” Moore said. “I feel like I’m in the Ohio State community, but I think the greater Columbus area, I’m not really involved in.”

Prior to COVID-19, five states already had mail-in voting procedures with automatic ballots in place. A Washington Post and Electronic Registration Information Center analysis of mail-in voting in Colorado, Oregon and Washington revealed that only one in 40,000 of the 14.6 million votes cast by mail in 2016 were flagged as fraudulent.

“This is all about trying to dissuade people from voting because he’s trying to scare people into thinking it’s not going to be legitimate,” Biden said Tuesday.

Claire Cornellier, a third-year in microbiology, said she will be voting absentee in Michigan because, like Moore, she is more in tune with issues in her home state.

“I’m concerned about the pandemic and going in to vote early, which I could do if I went home,” Cornellier said. 

Cornellier said although she opted to vote absentee by mail, she has concerns over the Postal Service handling her ballot given Trump’s recent question over the legitimacy of mail-in voting. 

Instead of mailing the completed ballot back to her hometown, Cornellier said she will give it to her parents when they visit campus in October to hand-deliver to the county board of elections in Michigan.

“It’s not going to go through the mail, it’s going to go directly to the counters. So, hopefully my ballot will be counted,” Cornellier said.

The increase of mail-in absentee voting is already becoming evident compared to past years. According to the Ohio Secretary of State website, nearly 1.8 million absentee ballots have been requested as of Sept. 22, which marks six weeks out from the election. Only 805,844 absentee ballots had been requested six weeks out from the 2016 election.

Although absentee voting rules differ by state, a ballot may be discarded in Ohio if it’s not postmarked by Nov. 2 and received by the board of elections within 10 days of the election. The board of elections then has until Nov. 24 to declare official results.

Ohio is one of seven “strict voter ID” states that do not allow students to use their student ID as identification at the polls, according to the Campus Voter Project website. Ohio law also does not permit a non-Ohio driver’s license or state ID to be used as voter ID, creating a challenge for out-of-state students. More than 12,712 Ohio State students are non-Ohio U.S. residents, according to Ohio State’s 2020 enrollment report.

“There are some voting laws that make additional barriers for young voters, including many states where you can’t use a student ID as a voter ID, but you can use a gun permit,” Drysdale said.

Black students may be further disenfranchised from voting due to a racial disparity in government-issued photo IDs. Of the 11 percent of total citizens nationally who do not have ID, 25 percent are Black compared to 8 percent white.

Ohio will accept a photo ID, utility bill, bank statement, paycheck or government-issued check as voter ID. Ohio State students can use their printed statement of account as voter ID as long as the address matches their voter registration, according to the OSU Votes website. The statement will not be accepted if it’s not printed.

According to the Ohio Secretary of State website, voters may still cast a provisional ballot without providing that information but must visit the board of elections to provide proof of identification within seven days of the election for their ballot to be counted.

Johnson said a lack of education contributes significantly to lower voter turnout among students. She said she likes to view college students as first-time voters who are likely more unpracticed than they are plainly apathetic to voting.

“Any time that you do something for the first time, you feel a lot of pressure,” Johnson said. “As a society, we always talk about how your vote matters and you need to do this, but we don’t often talk about, ‘It’s OK to have anxieties about quote-unquote messing up your vote or not being prepared.’”

Margaret Kaniecki, a second-year in city planning and history and treasurer of College Democrats at Ohio State, said many students are simply unaware of where to vote, deadlines for registration or how to request an absentee ballot. 

“When people are from all over the country and even different parts of the world that are here, you’re not really sure where your voting should be,” Kaniecki said. “There’s no straightforward answer to really tell someone, especially now, since we don’t know where we’re going to be in a couple months.”

Although the efforts of student organizations and campaigns such as the Big Ten Voting Challenge do not go unnoticed, Johnson said that if Ohio State had a centralized plan to communicate voting options across campus, students would likely be better prepared with a voting plan before the election.

She said many students incorrectly assume they’re supposed to vote at the Ohio Union when they may be assigned a location off campus. If a student shows up at the wrong polling location and waits in line between classes only to find out they need to vote someplace else, they may abandon voting in that election altogether.

Drysdale said it’s up to universities to take the initiative and provide information about voting that students know can be trusted amid disinformation circulating on platforms such as Facebook ahead of the election.

“This is a time for colleges and universities to step up and use their platforms to communicate with students,” Drysdale said.

COVID-19 will likely compound existing voting access issues for college students, but it also presents entirely new challenges. Concerns over the pandemic will cause some students to rethink their voting plan, weighing the safest and most secure options.

Abbi Moore, a third-year in marketing and psychology, said she has concerns about voting absentee by mail given the controversy around the Postal Service. As a result, she decided to vote in person on Nov. 3 because she wants her vote to have the best shot at being counted.

Abbi Moore said absentee voting is a great option for people who can’t make it to the polls, but since she has the means, she feels that voting in person is her most secure bet. She said she already works at the gym where she is at risk of exposure for COVID-19, so the risk associated with voting does not cause her concern.

Others who would normally vote in person may shift to absentee to reduce exposure to COVID-19 on Election Day. Beck said that he expects more students will vote absentee by mail than in past years, which is consistent with the increase in absentee ballots reported by the Ohio Secretary of State. 

“That absentee number is just going to climb and climb and climb over the next month,” Beck said.

Johnson encourages students to take advantage of early voting, which begins Oct. 6 in Ohio. She said casting a ballot early at the Franklin County Board of Elections eliminates some uncertainty in the event that COVID-19 causes students to be sent home mid-semester.

Drysdale said he hopes people will take advantage of early voting to cut down on long lines and increased exposure to COVID-19 on Election Day.

“We need to flatten the voting curve,” Drysdale said.

“I’m more likely to [register online] than open my laptop or try to figure out how I send mail through the [Postal Service],” Johnson said.

Jon Husted, Ohio’s lieutenant governor and former secretary of state, said in a December 2016 statement that a transition to online registration would not only save the state money but is also more secure than paper registration because the computer can verify voter information in real time, eliminating human error. 

Although the decision to offer online registration may not have been made specifically to benefit college students, Johnson said the virtual option does appeal to the tech-savvy generation. Online registration took effect Jan. 1, 2018, and the registration rate of Ohio State students increased 13.3 points since the 2014 election, according to the National Study of Learning, Voting and Engagement. 

In addition to online voter registration, voting absentee by mail could also increase college voter turnout by decreasing voter ID issues. Voters must provide identification ahead of Election Day when voting by absentee ballot and won’t face the same risk of being turned away Nov. 3 due to insufficient ID. Beck said that overall, an increase in absentee voting by mail could increase college voter turnout this year.

“They don’t have to worry about showing up at a polling place around campus and being denied the ability to cast a regular vote there,” Beck said.

Cornellier said regardless of the challenges posed by COVID-19, she would encourage other students to make a plan and vote this fall since it’s the easiest way for them to have a say in the range of issues on November’s ballot.

“Voting, regardless of the situation, is important,” Cornellier said. “Our voices are more important now than ever.”

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