Rutgers-Newark Wins State Competition for Campus Voter Registration

For the second year in a row, Rutgers-Newark has won the New Jersey Ballot Bowl, a statewide non-partisan voter registration and engagement competition led by and for students.

RU-N was the champion among similar-sized campuses. The bowl is divided into three conferences based on student population size. It counts not only the number of voter registrations but also the number of students who pledge to vote on election day.

It’s no surprise that RU-N was victorious, said Isnard Mir-Merced, a program coordinator for community engagement with the Office of Student Life and Leadership.  Rutgers-Newark has won the bowl since 2018, only breaking its streak in 2021, a pandemic year.

“We have students who are very politically minded and understand the importance of voting,’’ he said. “We wanted to bring the championship back home. It’s something we really pride ourselves on.’’

NJ Ballot Bowl 2023 is a program of the New Jersey Department of State’s Jersey Civic Engage initiative, and a joint effort with the ALL In Campus Democracy Challenge and runs August 31 through election day.

RU-N  students, led by Adaobi Njoku-obi, graduate coordinator in the Office of Student Life and Leadership, registered new voters and got 3,000 people to take the pledge. Since many students are already registered, the challenge was in getting them to promise to vote, especially since 2023 wasn’t a presidential election.

About 25 students volunteered to sign up potential voters, including some who registered voters and received pledges in their home towns. 

“Last year, we started that trend and encouraged students to go out in their communities,’’ said Merced. “We influenced the state to create new category of community engagement”

Volunteers set up white boards asking students to answer the question “What does voting mean to you?”  Their answers included responses such as,  “Voting is part of my freedom” and “Voting allows me to use my voice.” 

Merced believes that the number of immigrant and first-generation students at RU-N gave it a boost in the competition because they recognize the power and  importance of voting in a way that others might not.

“As the son of immigrants myself, I definitely understand that,’’ he said.