In the run up to their SEC rivalry football game on Sept. 24, Florida and Tennessee are competing off the field to see which school can do a better job of increasing its level of voter participation in the 2022 national mid-term election.
The schools have challenged each other to see which school can get the most people to register and enroll in each school’s voter reminder service before midnight on Friday, Sept. 23. The winner of the challenge will be announced during halftime of the UF-UT football game on Sept. 24 in Knoxville.
All faculty, staff and members of the Gator Nation – provided they are eligible to vote in U.S. elections – can participate to help Florida win, according to Teresa Cornacchione, the coordinator of civic engagement at UF’s Bob Graham Center for Public Service.
“Although the competition is aimed squarely at boosting the voter turnout among our students, all faculty, staff and members of the Gator Nation can take the ‘Beat Tennessee Voter Challenge’ and help the Gators come out on top,” Cornacchione says.
“The University of Florida is a top-five public university, and we’re on a mission to reflect that in our student voting, too.”
There are three steps to the voting competition with Tennessee: asking voters to verify their voter registration status, registering them to vote if needed and finally, enrolling them in UF Turbovote, the free, easy-to-use service that UF provides to remind the Gator Nation when, where and how to vote in every single election.
Gators and fans can quickly complete the Beat Tennessee Voter Challenge online at vote.ufl.edu, Cornacchione says. At the site, they can follow links to check their registration status and get registered to vote, regardless of their state of residency.
Most importantly, they need to enroll in UF TurboVote reminders by choosing the ‘Get Election Reminders’ button and completing the brief registration process.
They can also stop by the Graham Center, located on the 2nd floor of Pugh Hall, between 8:30 am and 4:30 pm Monday through Friday to obtain personal assistance in completing their voter registration and the Beat Tennessee challenge.
The Beat Tennessee Challenge is one strategy designed to continually build the habit of voting among UF students. In the last decade, UF’s efforts to register students and provide a convenient early voting location on campus have helped UF students out-perform the national average for voter engagement rates at college campuses nationwide, as tracked by Tuft University’s National Study of Learning, Voting and Engagement.
Just recently, UF was named one of America’s best colleges for student voting by Washington Monthly, a bimonthly nonprofit magazine of U.S. politics and government based in Washington, D.C.
“I’m so proud that UF students are voting leaders nationwide. As we approach the election, they can build on that tradition — and beat Tennessee in the process,” said UF President Kent Fuchs.
“I urge all Gator students to visit vote.ufl.edu, sign up to receive UF TurboVote reminders, and register to vote if they are not already registered. We can beat the Vols on the field and at the polls.”
The Bob Graham Center is coordinating the Beat Tennessee Voter Challenge against its counterpart at the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, the Howard H. Baker Jr. Center.