USC

USC hosts National Voter Registration Day

Find out if you’re eligible to vote, where the closest polling place is, how to register and more on campus this Tuesday.

Students and USC President Carol Folt Fight On at a voting event on campus on Sept. 20. (Photo by Louis Chen)

Students and USC President Carol Folt Fight On at National Voter Registration Day on September 20, 2022. (Photo by Louis Chen)

By Makayla Idelburg

USC will hold its annual National Voter Registration Day event in Alumni Park on Tuesday, aiming to help students, faculty and staff get civically engaged.

National Voter Registration Day (NVRD) is a nonpartisan civic holiday that was first observed in 2012 and is responsible for registering millions of Americans to vote. According to the NVRD website, “more than 5 million voters across all 50 states have registered to vote on National Voter Registration Day, including 1.5 million in 2020 alone.”

With the help of volunteers and organizations, the holiday provides an opportunity to educate Americans about the importance of voting and why they should exercise their right to do so.

Organized by the USC Dornsife Center for the Political Future and several student organizations, this event is designed to make registration accessible regardless of where voters are from.

“The younger a person is when they register to vote, the more likely they are to vote for the rest of their lives. So our goal is to get people registered as soon as they turn 18,” said Kamy Akhavan, the executive director of the Center for Political Future. “Voting is the minimum requirement we have as citizens in this democracy, so we’re trying to take away a lot of the mystery and make it very easy to participate.”

Participants will also get information from the many organizations present on where to find polling places, how to request an absentee ballot, how to change your existing registration information and other valuable resources. These organizations include Trojan Democrats, USC Republicans and cultural organizations like Alpha Kappa Alpha.

“The more influence we have over the decisions that happen to us, the better we’ll be able to guide and shape our own lives and the lives of the issues we care about and the people we care about,” Akhavan said.

Visit the event’s page to sign up for USC NVRD and swing by Alumni Park for voter information and free food (eligible to registered students, faculty, and staff only).