'This election is everything': College students push schools to cancel classes on Election Day

[Bootes Void]

"This election is everything," Tamir Harper said. "I'm a 2000s baby. I've lived through everything — 9/11, wars, and now a historic presidency and also a pandemic."

Harper, a junior at American University, is one of many students across the country who lobbied their colleges to make Election Day an academic holiday.

In a Sept. 20 tweet, Harper called on the university to cancel classes to allow students to be able to vote in person and also volunteer as poll workers. As the tweet circulated, Harper organized an email campaign effort that led to over 175 emails being sent to university administration. Another student put together a petition, which reached over 500 signatures by the time it was sent to university administrators.

Harper’s efforts were a success. On Monday, American University announced its decision to cancel classes for Election Day, joining schools like Brown University, the University of Utah, and Colorado College who also gave students the time off.

But not every school has been as flexible, especially ones whose academic calendars have been truncated due to Covid-19.

The University of Pennsylvania last month shot down a push from a bipartisan group of student leaders to make Election Day an academic holiday.

Emma Wennberg, the Communications Director for PennDems, said that her group will continue "to try to pressure department heads to allow excused absences because the university has left it up to each individual department to set the guidelines."

At the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an influx of students signed up to be poll workers with the Madison City Clerk offices and with Dane County, where Madison is located. The City Clerk’s Office said it has twice as many workers as in the past three presidential elections and are unable to accept additional applications.

Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell told the campus newspaper, The Badger Herald, that students who are registered and receive training will be a “great advantage” for future elections too.

"We are in good shape for election day," McDonell said

[BaldEagle1991]

I wish my college cancelled classes when I was at SFA in 2012.

[Alben Barkley]

Pretty sure I just skipped class on election day when I was in college in 2008. Next day too, due to a celebratory hangover.

[GALeftist]

My college has done this so yay!

[Buzz]

I had to do an absentee ballot in 2016 when I was in school.  More kids need to look into that.

[ProgressiveModerate]

My High School will be doing fully remote school on Election Day and even though I can’t vote, it makes me so  mad!

[Kuumo]

I wish my school would do this. I have to vote absentee since I am registered in a different state from my school, but lots of other students would benefit from this.

[AGA]

How about the day after so we can stay up late seeing the results?

[Buzz]

How about the day after so we can stay up late seeing the results?

I was up till 4:30am in 2016 watching the final call.  Had an 8:00 lecture the next day.  Luckily I was so happy it was rather easy to get up, but had he lost I would have been a walking zombie.

[Xing]

Good.

[brucejoel99]

In the meantime, professors who don't excuse civic absences are asshats.

[Bootes Void]

How about the day after so we can stay up late seeing the results?

I was up till 4:30am in 2016 watching the final call.  Had an 8:00 lecture the next day.  Luckily I was so happy it was rather easy to get up, but had he lost I would have been a walking zombie.

Same, I stayed up till 4am on election night watching the results and then I went to sleep. Even though I live in Canada, the next morning(day in general) at campus felt very quiet and discomforting(not sad necessarily) when its usually very bustling/active. I had a lecture at 8:30 in the morning and the prof and the students all felt like corpses because no one had the will to talk about the election even though that was very clearly on everyones's mind.

The days and weeks after election 2016 felt like i was in a entirely different planet or universe especially on campus, but overtime the sentiment slowly went away to where it was before

in simplest terms, it felt like a 9/11 happened and everyone was quiet and tried not to talk about it

[emailking]

Not a good idea to have a test or anything but having classes seems ok. Of course, as I've said many times I think voting should be a week long including a weekend and then there's no issue. Almost everyone will have a free moment sometime when they can go vote.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Most colleges are still doing remote learning

[Roblox]

My university has already cancelled all classes on Election Day. I hope more do it.

[Former President tack50]

Reason #12231214 as to why Americans should move their election day to a Sunday or make election day a federal holiday.

(even a Saturday would work fine!).

In fact I wonder why Democratic leaning states haven't already done that and declared election day a state holiday. Puerto Rico already has election day as a state holiday.

[Penn_Quaker_Girl]

The University of Pennsylvania last month shot down a push from a bipartisan group of student leaders to make Election Day an academic holiday.

Because of course. 

[YE]

At Oklahoma we use to have the day before the Oklahoma-Texas football game off. This year, that day off was moved to Election Day.