We Must Make It Easier for Illinois College Students to Vote

By Yusr Albaghdadi & Anshul Nadendla    6/20/25

      Students attending colleges in counties different from their permanent home address face significant obstacles when attempting to vote. Students living in dormitories or college-provided housing often lack the documentation required for voter registration, such as utility bills, mail addressed to the current address, or lease agreements. The result is reduced electoral participation among college-age voters, who may miss local elections by facing logistical challenges accessing polling places during academic periods. 

      To counter this, we propose the Illinois state government adopt a universal mail-in ballot voting system for registered college students studying in public universities. In order to rectify the underrepresentation of Illinois college students in democratic participation, the state of Illinois must remove significant barriers to voting. One of these barriers is the inaccessibility of absentee ballot voting. According to the Illinois state board of elections, under the status quo each Illinois voter must individually request an absentee ballot be sent to them if they are unable to vote in-person at their designated polling location for some reason (American Civil Liberties Union, n.d.). For college students who live away from home and are unable to reach their polling location either before or on Election Day, an absentee ballot (mail-in voting) is their only option. This expectation is unfeasible or inconvenient for college students who bear other responsibilities and feel detached from the voting process as a whole. 

     If Illinois election authorities were to implement this policy, it would require them to identify the students in Illinois with an address linked to a public in-state university. The election authorities would be in charge of sending absentee ballots to each of these addresses. This action would have to be recurring for every election that takes place. But, in order to minimize the financial cost, the service will end for the students once they graduate from that public university. 

    The universal mail-in ballot approach has been implemented and successful in eight other states across the United States, providing Illinois officials with a framework to follow and learn from. In 2020, both Hawaii and Utah – who implemented universal mail-in ballots for the first time that year as a response to the pandemic – saw more than a 10% increase in voter turnout rates. According to Movement Advancement Project, both those states – alongside six others – have continued their automatic absentee programs post-COVID (MAP, 2025). This shows the promise and sustainability of the automatic absentee program. Understanding that these benefits would likely extend to Illinoisans in college, it is clear the benefit realized when we pursue such a policy. 

     To ensure the feasibility of such an initiative, relevant electoral commissioners and authorities must partner with student offices at public universities across the state. These school-managed offices would serve as points of contact between the electoral outreach workers and the students on campus. These offices or registrars would be the site at which students collect their absentee ballot, rather receive them individually. This ensures that the ballots are managed and secure. Despite claims that mail-voting is fraudulent, it is safe and can be maintained as such on college campuses if electoral authorities work in tandem with school administrators (Center for Election Innovation and Research, 2024). If the electoral authorities provide the right resources, schools could transport these centers into general civic promotion areas, where students can get peer-to-peer aid that helps them navigate the process and bolsters their engagement in civics (Merkle, 2024).

      Furthermore, historically marginalized voter groups like Latino voters and African-American voters may not receive the same benefits as their white counterparts under an automatic mail-in system. In fact, studies from the 2020 Georgia primary election show that mail-in ballots from nonwhite voters were rejected at much higher rates than those of white voters. This disparity could maintain the status quo of underrepresentation for Black and Latino college students. However, the Washington State Standard found in a 2023 study that universal mail-in ballots helped uplift the participation of voters of color in the eight states that implemented such a program (Roth, 2023). 

      Moreover, California’s vote-by-mail system implemented for the 2020 election showed that areas in California with a high proportion of people of color cast 26% more ballots from 2016 to 2020, with predominantly white areas only increasing by 18% (Hoque, 21). Therefore, we can be certain that implementing a mail-in voting system will increase voter turnout, especially among historically marginalized groups. Under effective supervision by the state government, the benefits of mail-in voting can actually transcend racial barriers.

EVC, E. V. C. (2022, November 7). The value of peer-to-peer engagement. https://www.evcnational.org/the-evc-blog/the-value-of-peer-to-peer-engagement 

Roth, Z. (2023, October 9). States that send a mail ballot to every voter really do increase turnout, scholars find • Washington State Standard. Washington State Standard. https://washingtonstatestandard.com/2023/10/09/states-that-send-a-mail-ballot-to-every-voter-rea lly-do-increase-turnout-scholars-find/ 

Team, T. C. (2024, April 1). Is voting by mail secure, and how can I know my mail-in vote is counted?. The Center for Election Innovation & Research. 

https://electioninnovation.org/update/is-voting-by-mail-secure-and-how-can-i-know-my-mail-in vote-is-counted/ 

Vote by mail. ACLU of Illinois. (2024, March 13). https://www.aclu-il.org/en/vote-mail 

Hoque, U. (2021, September 29). California’s new vote-by-mail system is a big win for marginalized groups. Prism. https://prismreports.org/2021/09/29/californias-new-vote-by-mail-system-is-a-big-win-for-marginalized-groups