Ventura County Registrar of Voters, Michelle Ascencion and Political Science Lecturer Tim Allison give a lecture to a political science
class.
It is a well-documented fact that college-educated people are more likely to vote and become actively engaged in their communities. It is therefore unsurprising that many 91ĘÓƵ faculty consider it part of their mission to teach students the nuts and bolts of democracy so they can make informed choices at the ballot box—particularly in 2024.
At least 64 countries, including the U.S. and the European Union, will head to the polls in 2024, making it the largest number of people ever to vote somewhere in the world—about half the global population.
“We haven’t had this great moment of upheaval in generations,” said 91ĘÓƵ Political Science Lecturer Tim Allison. “Like the days surrounding Pearl Harbor or Watergate, today's headlines require us to cast an informed ballot if we care about democracy.”
Katherine Elder
Assistant Professor of Communication Katherine Elder feels the same way. She teaches a class called Political Communication, in which she covers elections, debates, the press, campaigns, political communication theories, navigating social media, and more.
Ventura County Registrar of Voters, Michelle Ascencion speaks to the class.
“We have this uncommonly polarized election coming up,” Elder said. “I think this is an opportunity in real time for students to evaluate and analyze the messages flying around in our social and political world.”
Elder and Allison require their students to volunteer for a campaign of their choice to familiarize them with phone banking, social media posting, drafting opinion editorials, or working with campaign staff.
“Working on this campaign was an eye-opening and amazing learning experience,” one student wrote when reflecting on the experience. “It really helped me better understand how a campaign is run, especially at a municipal level.”
Lecturer Tim Allison
Allison teaches a course called “Campaigns and Elections,” in which he demystifies the voting process and familiarizes students with the mechanics of a political campaign, often with guest speakers like former Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, Ventura County District Attorney Erik Nasarenko, and Ventura County Registrar of Voters, Michelle Ascencion.
“It’s important to remember that not every state does their voting processes the same way,” Ascencion told the “Campaigns and Elections” class. “Vote by mail, for example, is very secure in California because every ballot has to be signed, and when you mail it, your vote is locked in, and you can’t vote again in person.”
Hearing from Ascencion was enlightening to students like Jasmine Williams.
“I really didn’t know voting by mail was that secure,” Williams said. “Hearing that from the voting registrar’s perspective, I feel a lot safer voting by mail than in person.”
Faculty members in these courses do not share their political leanings but seek to empower their students by teaching them critical thinking skills so they can develop their own views.
“Teaching people about how democracy works is critically important right now, especially for young people,” Allison said. “I don’t care if they’re Republican, Democrat, Green Party, or anything else—I just want them to be educated.”