Donuts and Democracy: How We Got Students Voting | Jhanvi Patel | TEDxOU — Transcript

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1. 0:00Transcriber: Ngọc Trân Reviewer: HƯƠNG TRƯƠNG THỊ
2. 0:03I learned two things during the 2024 presidential elections,
3. 0:07College students will stop for free food,
4. 0:09and if you want to register, voters, bring cookies.
5. 0:12I'm here to talk about votes.
6. 0:14A student run, nonpartisan organization here on campus.
7. 0:17That year, I had the of serving as one
8. 0:19of their two civic engagement fellows, and dare I say,
9. 0:23our sweet treat budget was probably the highest it's ever been.
10. 0:25We developed a pretty close working relationship with the employees
11. 0:29of Baked Bare, Insomnia Cookies and Donut King,
12. 0:32but behind the joke is a material problem.
13. 0:35College students aren't at the polls, but it's not because they don't care.
14. 0:39It's because the process feels confusing, distant, or just not made for them.
15. 0:44Trust in government and institutions is low,
16. 0:47and youth voter turnout is inconsistent.
17. 0:50Historically, those aged 18
18. 0:52to 29 have the lowest participation rate among any age group,
19. 0:55and Oklahoma actually has the lowest turnout rate among
20. 0:58any state in the nation.
21. 1:01That number gets even lower when looking at midterm years or local elections.
22. 1:05Arguably the ones that are the most important to us.
23. 1:09So it seems then that civic engagement, whether that be activism,
24. 1:13voting or coalition building,
25. 1:15just isn't something that young individuals are interested in. And yet,
26. 1:19I think it’s fair that and I know my generation
27. 1:21has opinions, strong ones even.
28. 1:25So in 2024, Oklahoma votes conducted a survey asking students
29. 1:29what issues they cared the most about.
30. 1:31Among some of our top responses were things like climate change, mental health,
31. 1:36the economy, and the cost of living crisis.
32. 1:40So it's obvious that my generation has opinions and that we care.
33. 1:45But that's the year I learned something deeper.
34. 1:48College students aren't disengaged from the system.
35. 1:50Rather, the system is disengaged from them.
36. 1:53And a pattern hit me every time a student expressed frustration, apathy,
37. 1:58or confusion. It wasn't coming from a place of laziness.
38. 2:02It was coming from a place of distance, from not feeling spoken to,
39. 2:06listened to, or noticed.
40. 2:09Everyone tends to assume that young individuals don't care,
41. 2:12when in reality they just haven't been invited in.
42. 2:16And I've found that the problem presents itself in three main categories.
43. 2:20The first is that it's too complicated.
44. 2:23There are too many barriers in place,
45. 2:25whether that be trying to find a polling place within walking distance
46. 2:28of campus, or trying to understand the confusing mail in ballot rules.
47. 2:34When I'm tabling, my go to line is often, hi, are you registered to vote?
48. 2:38And on a college campus where over 40% of students are non-residents,
49. 2:42I very often get the response, oh, I'm not from here, I can't vote.
50. 2:47When that couldn't be further from the truth.
51. 2:50tudentsaren’t aware of options available to
52. 2:53as out of state individuals.
53. 2:57And then we have those who claim to say that it doesn't feel relevant.
54. 3:02These individuals claim apathy,
55. 3:04saying that the process is too partisan and cutthroat
56. 3:08or lacks practical applicability.
57. 3:11For these students, it's just better left alone.
58. 3:15It often looks like, oh, I'm just not that into politics.
59. 3:18And a student who looks really uncomfortable speaking about the subject.
60. 3:23There was a particular when I was tabling in the union courtyard
61. 3:26and I stopped a student, let's call him Mike.
62. 3:29Mike was to tell me be voting in the election
63. 3:31because it didn't affect him.
64. 3:34Having heard that quite often, I handed Mike a voter guide and encouraged him
65. 3:38to look in the candidates and just see if
66. 3:40anything spoke to him.
67. 3:43Frequently, students just need help taking that first step and then the third.
68. 3:48These are our disillusioned students.
69. 3:51These individuals understand of civic engagement,
70. 3:53but have felt repeatedly let down by the system time and time again.
71. 3:58I distinctly remember a question I was asked
72. 4:00when tabling at a student leadership organization's monthly meeting At the end
73. 4:04of the the student raised their hand and posed
74. 4:07one simple question why vote when you know what the outcome is going to be?
75. 4:12And I wasn’t ready for the murmur of approval that came
76. 4:15the rest of the room.
77. 4:18But in that moment, disillusionment stopped being this obstacle that we had
78. 4:22to overcome and instead became a catalyst to rewrite our story.
79. 4:27That idea was the emotional center of our work.
80. 4:31It was no longer about convincing students that democracy was perfect,
81. 4:35but rather about showing them that it's participatory,
82. 4:38designed to work for them.
83. 4:41So these three forces became our guiding ideas throughout the year.
84. 4:45The strategies we implemented in the days leading up
85. 4:47to the election had groups of students
86. 4:50at the center of our mission.
87. 4:51So first we had to work to disrupt that confusing process.
88. 4:55When students found it to be complicated, we worked to make it seamless.
89. 5:00Civic engagement is often perceived as something that requires a mountain
90. 5:03of hard work and lots of previous knowledge.
91. 5:06When in reality, it's simple.
92. 5:09We met students where they were, whether that was the dorms, the classrooms,
93. 5:13or the flu clinics. My team of just six individuals was at 40 events
94. 5:17in just three months.
95. 5:19When a student complained about a barrier, we worked to remove it.
96. 5:23We offered registrations for all 50 states,
97. 5:25accommodating each state's unique requirements.
98. 5:28If a student lived far away from Oyu and wanted to mail absentee
99. 5:31or vote absentee, we got that request form sent out.
100. 5:35And if it needed to be notarized before it was sent back,
101. 5:38we got it done and mailed it back.
102. 5:41Our efforts ingrained civic engagement in the fabric of student life
103. 5:44and made it something that was easily accessible,
104. 5:47because it wasto us that Oklahoma known as the premier,
105. 5:50non-partisan organization here on campus.
106. 5:53Student leaders reach out to our organization
107. 5:55to get the members of theirs registered,
108. 5:58and they often did in the days leading up to the election.
109. 6:01My team helped around 3000 individuals and yeah,
110. 6:04sometimes that meant helping fill out a form in the hallway
111. 6:07between lectures, and other times it meant getting a text
112. 6:10at 11 p.m. from a student
113. 6:12who finally worked up to ask that question.
114. 6:15But democracy isn't always a national movement.
115. 6:19Sometimes it's just a familiar face in between lectures.
116. 6:23These small conversations,
117. 6:25the ones that lasted three minutes
118. 6:27but dismantled three years of misunderstandings,
119. 6:29became the heartbeat of our work that year.
120. 6:33And then we had those who said that it didn't feel interesting.
121. 6:37These individuals to be shown how the system affects them.
122. 6:42We worked to individualize every single presentation we gave.
123. 6:45When we spoke to our fine we talked about state arts funding,
124. 6:48and spoke to our football players
125. 6:50and our student athletes, we spoke about Nil legislation.
126. 6:54Additionally, we built with every group of students
127. 6:56we spoke to establishing a rapport that would lead to honest discussions.
128. 7:00Relationship building a key part of our strategy
129. 7:03and is what catapulted our impact.
130. 7:05We worked to make civic for every student
131. 7:08who had previously claimed apathy.
132. 7:10When we reframed the conversation around their lives
133. 7:13and not just their singular opinions, something clicked.
134. 7:17Relevancy, I learned, is the gateway to responsibility.
135. 7:22And as was our responsibility,
136. 7:23we remained explicitly nonpartisan throughout it all.
137. 7:26Because the job was never to push any particular political agenda
138. 7:30or coerce students to vote in any particular way.
139. 7:33Rather, it was to encourage engagement and active involvement
140. 7:36with our government.
141. 7:39On a college campus. We've got a diverse melting pot of different perspectives,
142. 7:43demographics, and beliefs.
143. 7:46We encouraged everyone to form and express their own opinions.
144. 7:50Partisanship was never pushed, and as a result, we created a welcoming,
145. 7:54flourishing community.
146. 7:57Some of my favorite conversations came from students
147. 8:00their questions like they were confessing something scandalous.
148. 8:03Things like can I vote if I don't know everything?
149. 8:06And what even is a primary?
150. 8:10And every time I answer remained the same.
151. 8:13Yes, you can still vote.
152. 8:14And this isn't a test.
153. 8:16It's meant to be an invitation.
154. 8:18And that was our second disruption.
155. 8:21Replacing shame with curiosity.
156. 8:23That student courtyard, Mike, who said he wouldn’t be voting.
157. 8:27Approached me about 20 minutes after our initial
158. 8:29He had a coffee in his hand
159. 8:31that the Starbucks line was a great place
160. 8:33to look over the voter guide I had handed him.
161. 8:36After something about food stamps candidate’s platform,
162. 8:39he decided he want to have a say
163. 8:41and he would be casting a ballot come November.
164. 8:43College students aren't uninterested.
165. 8:45They're just educationally underserved.
166. 8:48When intentional efforts are taken, students respond accordingly.
167. 8:53And then we have our dissolution.
168. 8:54Students that brave student at the monthly meeting described it as trying
169. 8:58to build a house with a screwdriver and a hammer as your only tools.
170. 9:03And if I'm honest, I couldn't really argue with that logic.
171. 9:07So to make civic engagement enduring, we had to show students their power.
172. 9:11It had to stop feeling like a losing battle.
173. 9:15We recruited student leaders from across campus
174. 9:17and had them share a message about why they vote.
175. 9:20We compiled these testimonials
176. 9:22into a social media campaign highlighting the various. My voting wise,
177. 9:26most powerful.
178. 9:27My voting wise were short things like because my grandma couldn't.
179. 9:31Or because I want brother to in a better world
180. 9:34These aren't political statements, they're human ones.
181. 9:38And that was where our strategy had utility.
182. 9:40Showing individuals the value of civic engagement.
183. 9:44When students saw their friends and peers leading the charge,
184. 9:47the culture started to shift.
185. 9:50It was no longer about outreach and started to feel more like ownership.
186. 9:55And that is how we answered our outcome question.
187. 10:00It wasn't about whether or not your candidate won.
188. 10:03It was about whether or not your beliefs were considered.
189. 10:07At that monthly meeting,
190. 10:11of our work tangible.
191. 10:13We shared the results of our efforts
192. 10:15and just how different the looked, even compared
193. 10:17to just a few weeks ago.
194. 10:20In the days leading up to the 2024 presidential election,
195. 10:23my team helped around 9% of the student body registered to vote
196. 10:26or request an absentee ballot.
197. 10:35Our organization’s engagement the roof, with our social
198. 10:38media accounts hitting record followings.
199. 10:40At each event that we hosted, attendance records were broken,
200. 10:43unlike anything ever seen before in the history of our organization.
201. 10:47Students felt there was a community for them on campus,
202. 10:50regardless of political affiliation.
203. 10:54I could visibly see the impact my words had on that student
204. 10:57and the impact my words had on the room.
205. 10:59College students aren't disillusioned.
206. 11:02They're not cynics. They're not jaded, and they're not pessimists.
207. 11:06At the end of it all, they just want to feel respected too.
208. 11:09Listened and heard. And I'm proud
209. 11:12to say that Oklahoma votes did that all year long.
210. 11:16Throughout it all, one key idea became clear democracy doesn't fail
211. 11:20because people don't care.
212. 11:22It fails when we don't meet people where they are.
213. 11:25As we tabled weekly across campus in the sweltering heat
214. 11:28and the whipping Oklahoma wind, we started recognizing familiar faces.
215. 11:33We understood that our job was not just about registering voters.
216. 11:37It was about building relationships, creating conversations,
217. 11:40and reminding students why their voice mattered.
218. 11:44Many individuals assume that young people are impassive to the needs
219. 11:48of the country. I counter with this they're not impassive,
220. 11:53just uninformed and underserved.
221. 11:57When barriers are removed, engagement becomes the default.
222. 12:01When people feel included, belonging and subsequent agency skyrockets,
223. 12:06simply reminding students worth sharing is enough
224. 12:08to make involvement feel accessible across every conversation,
225. 12:13whether it started with frustration, apathy, or confusion.
226. 12:16The end result was the same when a student felt seen.
227. 12:20They leaned in naturally.
228. 12:23At the end of it all, this isn't just a story about about college students.
229. 12:28It’s about the meaningful ways that you and I engage with
230. 12:30and the steps we can take to make that engagement last.
231. 12:35And maybe that's the real disruption,
232. 12:37reimagining civic engagement not as something institutional,
233. 12:42but as something deeply personal,
234. 12:44not as a chore, but as a connection,
235. 12:48not as a distant responsibility that we think about every four years,
236. 12:51but as a shared cultural habit that we build together.
237. 12:56Because what would the landscape look like if we were
238. 12:58able to get 9% of students on every college campus registered to vote?
239. 13:03At the start, we talked civic engagement being many
240. 13:05from voting to activism to coalition building.
241. 13:09At the same time, it's also just sharing a moment with a student
242. 13:12on the South Oval. Connection is what made our efforts enduring,
243. 13:16and starting this cultural shift is what allowed our strategy to be replicable.
244. 13:23So as I reflect on all that I've learned, I leave you with two simple lessons.
245. 13:27First, register to vote
246. 13:30because I wouldn’t be if I didn’t say it at least once.
247. 13:33And second, when faced with a seemingly insurmountable problem,
248. 13:37I encourage you to stop and reflect.
249. 13:40Is it actually insurmountable or does it just need a free baked good?
250. 13:47Civic responsibility and engagement isn't always a large, sweeping initiative.
251. 13:52Sometimes it's a free cookie or a free donut because
252. 13:57when we make civic engagement digestible, we make it inevitable. Thank you.