FAQ
How did the Creative Campus Voting Project (CCVP) get started?
CCVP was co-founded by associate professors at the University of Michigan Stamps School of Art & Design, Stephanie Rowden and Hannah Smotrich.
In 2017, we noticed our campus had relatively low voter turnout rates in relation to registration rates at the time. This gap inspired us to co-create and co-teach a class during the 2018 midterms in which students designed materials for their peers to make voting more visible and less confusing. Our experience in 2018 revealed the potential of art and design to make voting more accessible to student voters and prompted the start of CCVP — now a year-round faculty research endeavor. With every major election cycle, we design and develop a range of creative projects to support student voting.
What do you want student voters to take from their experiences with your projects?
We want students to come away from a CCVP project thinking, “I got this!”
Our work is centered on creating welcoming and reassuring civic spaces and non-partisan voting materials explicitly designed for students — located on their campus, written in language tailored to them, and facilitated by their peers. By weaving voting into student life, we hope to make voting more accessible and transform a bureaucratic task into a celebratory, communal activity. We want our work to foster a sense of confidence in students about their ability to participate in democracy and equip them to become life-long voters.
How is your work impacting youth voter turnout?
That’s a great question! There are many factors and efforts that go into increasing student turnout. We do know that CCVP makes a meaningful impact on our campus.
In the 2020 and 2022 elections, the voting hubs we designed for the University of Michigan Ann Arbor campus facilitated over 9,300 registrations and collected over 13,000 ballots. In 2020, nearly 90% of voting-eligible students on the U-M Ann Arbor campus registered to vote, and 78% cast their ballot on election day (NSLVE Report). We also know that, according to a report from Tufts University (CIRCLE), the state of Michigan had the highest youth voter turnout (37%) for the 2022 midterm election.
What is the role of student research assistants?
Working together with Stephanie and Hannah, students on the CCVP research team have the opportunity to apply the skills they’ve learned in the classroom to a meaningful real-world project.
Our student research team members make important contributions to CCVP projects. Given their perspective as students, our research assistants are key to what we call our “creative sounding board” — thinking with us about how to best deliver key information to their peers. They contribute their creative skills (drawing friendly illustrations or playful characters) and their research and writing skills (explaining the role of various offices on the ballot). Working with our team keeps us anchored in the student experience — and adds some fun to a lot of hard work!
Who are your partners? How does CCVP fit into the UMICH Votes Coalition?
Stephanie Rowden and Hannah Smotrich, with their student research team, comprise CCVP, and they have cultivated many strong partnerships that help make their work possible.
The Ann Arbor City Clerk has been a crucial partner–not only staffing and coordinating the satellite City Clerk offices on campus, but also ensuring that our projects are accurate, non-partisan and in compliance with all election laws. We have several key partners on the University of Michigan campus who, along with CCVP and the Ann Arbor City Clerk, are known as the “UMICH Votes Coalition.” These campus partners include: U-M Turn Up Turnout, the Ginsberg Center, the University of Michigan Museum of Art, and the Duderstadt Center Gallery. We all benefit from the lively eco-system of civic engagement efforts on our campus.
Will CCVP expand to other university and college campuses?
We hope to — we would love other campuses across the country to benefit from our work!
Every campus will have their own needs, particularly in response to local election law and the nature of their student body, but we believe that our approach can be valuable to a range of colleges and universities looking to support student voters. As artists and designers, we work with a few core principles that others can follow: make it welcoming, clear, calm, reassuring, trustworthy — and delightful! Our hope and intention for the future is to “share our recipe” for everything CCVP does. If you’re interested in learning more, you can start by reading this essay, and, of course, feel free to get in touch!