Wake Forest Named Among America’s Best Colleges for Student Voting Second Year in a Row
Following the 2020 presidential election, Wake Forest University has been recognized as one of “America’s Best Colleges for Student Voting in 2021” by Washington Monthly, a nonprofit magazine that covers government and political issues. Universities that demonstrated a high level of commitment in encouraging students to vote were selected for the annual honor roll list.
The recognition marks WFU’s second time being named to the list, now in its sixth year, after first making the list in 2020. Wake Forest joins seven other schools from the state of North Carolina and was one of 205 schools selected from across the country.
The Monthly compiled its 2021 list with information from both the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge, which helps schools develop registration and turnout plans, and The National Study of Learning, Voting, and Engagement (NSLVE), which calculates college-specific and registration and voting rates registration numbers.
The listed schools met multiple criteria. They submitted an ALL IN action plan in 2018 and 2020 (information for 2020 is not yet available), and are currently enrolled and signed up to receive NSLVE data about their own campus registration and turnout rates. In addition, each institution has made both its 2016 and 2018 NSLVE data available to the public. In short, selected schools have shown a repeated commitment to increasing student voting – and have been transparent about the results.
Schools on the honor roll are listed by their 2018 voter registration rate, from highest to lowest, beginning at the top of the first column and ending at the bottom of the last column.
The Office of Civic & Community Engagement at Wake Forest is home to Deacs Decide, a highly collaborative campus-wide political engagement project. The program aims to raise awareness about issues at stake in the 2020 election; educate the campus and Winston-Salem community about candidates; and register students, faculty, and staff to vote. For more information about Wake Forest’s voter registration and education initiatives, visit Deacs Decide.