The University of Pennsylvania is one of over two hundred campuses in thirty-seven states and the District of Columbia designated as a “Voter Friendly Campus,” by national nonpartisan organizations Fair Elections Center’s Campus Vote Project (CVP) and NASPA –Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education. This designation celebrates Penn’s commitment to actively supporting and encouraging voter engagement.

The mission of the Voter Friendly Campus designation is to bolster efforts that help students overcome barriers to participating in the political process. Penn was evaluated on a campus plan to register, educate, and turnout students in the 2020 election. It also included details on how Penn implemented these voter engagement efforts on campus, and a final analysis of Penn’s efforts—all in the face of the upheaval caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The designation is valid through December 2022.

The designation marks the second time that Penn has been named a Voter Friendly Campus. In 2019, Penn became the first member of the Ivy League to be officially designated as a Voter Friendly Campus. With this designation, Penn has demonstrated a strong commitment to the civic mission of higher education by preparing students to be engaged participants in our democracy through 2022 and beyond.

As part of its effort to help Penn be designated a Voter Friendly Campus, Penn Leads the Vote (PLTV) built a virtual infrastructure in the fall of 2020 to increase voting and civic engagement amid the COVID-19 pandemic. Key elements of the engagement infrastructure included the online platform Motivote, social media, and building a team of dedicated volunteers to further help the engagement process.

The designation comes just as the National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement, or NSLVE, by the Institute for Democracy & Higher Education (IDHE) at Tufts University’s Tisch College of Civic Life updated their estimates for voter turnout among Penn students in the 2018 midterm elections. NSLVE now estimates that turnout among Penn students was 54.7% in the 2018 midterms, a significant increase from their previous estimate of 41%.

The institutions designated Voter Friendly Campuses represent a wide range of two-year, four-year, public, private, rural, and urban campuses. Notably, the list of designated institutions includes many Minority Serving Institutions and Historically Black Colleges and Universities. The program ultimately serves millions of students.