The Silver Seal designation recognizes Southeast for achieving a 2020 campus voting rate between 60-69% in the 2020 election. Southeast’s student voting rate was 62%, an increase of 14% from 2016. 

“As a campus community we are pleased to see our students engaged in the voting process and I am thankful for the work of the campus to help students get registered to vote or to help with absentee voting,” said Dr. Bruce Skinner, associate vice president for student life at Southeast. “It is our hope that if students can develop the habit of voting when they are young, this will be a habit that will encourage them to remain civically engaged throughout their lives.” 

Southeast was recognized during the virtual 2021 ALL IN Challenge Awards Ceremony Nov. 8-10, the third biennial awards ceremony celebrating nonpartisan student civic engagement. 

The ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge is a nonpartisan, national initiative recognizing and supporting campuses as they work to increase nonpartisan democratic engagement and full student voter participation. The Challenge encourages higher education institutions to help students form the habits of active and informed citizenship and make democratic participation a core value on their campus.

Results of the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge are formulated from the Institute for Democracy & Higher Education (IDHE), creators of the National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement, or NSLVE. The study indicates campuses across the country, students built on the momentum swing of 2018 and voted at high rates in the 2020 election, with voter turnout jumping to 66% in last year’s presidential election. The 14 percentage point increase, from 52% turnout in the 2016 election, outpaces that of all Americans, which jumped 6 percentage points from 61% to 67%, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. 

“The University worked with SEMO Votes, a non-partisan organization, to help students get registered and to assist with absentee ballots,” Skinner said. “The work of SEMO Votes and multiple faculty and staff were an important part of helping students obtain answers to questions about the voting process.” 

About the National Student of Learning, Voting, and Engagement (NSLVE) 

IDHE’s National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement (NSLVE, pronounced n-solve) is the nation’s largest study of college and university student voting. Institutions must opt-in to the study, and at this time, nearly 1,200 campuses of all types—community colleges, research universities, minority-serving and women’s colleges, state universities, and private institutions—participate. The dataset reflects all 50 states and the District of Columbia and includes 49 of the nation’s 50 flagship schools. IDHE uses de-identified student records to ensure student privacy. The 2020 dataset is robust with 8,880,700 voting-eligible students representing 1,051 colleges and universities.