Washington, DC —Today, two of the nation’s leading higher education associations—the American Association of State Colleges and Universities (AASCU) and the Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education (NASPA)— announced a partnership with TurboVote. Through this partnership, TurboVote, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization, will bring its innovative “one-stop-shop” voter engagement platform to students at college and university campuses across the country.

Made possible by a grant from the Rita Allen Foundation, this partnership will support AASCU and NASPA member institutions in their on-campus voter outreach efforts, help them promote civic learning and foster habits that will lead to life-long civic engagement.

"TurboVote’s platform represents an important and innovative piece of the effort to increase civic literacy and engagement through digital technology,” said Elizabeth Good Christopherson, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Rita Allen Foundation. “In partnering with NASPA and AASCU, TurboVote will vastly increase access to a key voting demographic while making significant improvements in voter engagement efforts at colleges and universities across the country.”

TurboVote’s platform helps colleges and universities meet federal mandates that require institutions provide students with voter registration information. With help from NASPA and AASCU, TurboVote hopes to support institutions in meeting these mandates and set a new standard for voter engagement in higher education.

“This partnership sends an important message to institutional leaders that democratic engagement should be a part of every student’s college education,” said George Mehaffy, AASCU’s Vice President for Academic Leadership and Change.

NASPA and AASCU’s access to key players in higher education will help TurboVote integrate its platform into established systems and student interactions. TurboVote’s tool makes it possible to conduct voter engagement without collecting or submitting a single form. Simply by sharing a link, schools can embed voter engagement into existing processes such as freshman orientation and class registration.

“NASPA members have a unique opportunity to promote democratic engagement across the many channels of the co-curriculum," says NASPA President Kevin Kruger. "We are excited to add TurboVote to the tools used to educate students for citizenship both inside and outside the classroom.”  

With help from AASCU and NASPA, TurboVote — already working with over 80 campuses across the country—will expand its reach to at least 100 new colleges and universities this year, with the hope that this effort will yield an additional 110,000 new users each year, starting in 2014.

12 institutions have already signed on to launch the service under the AASCU/NASPA partnership.

###

AASCU is a Washington-based higher education association of nearly 420 public colleges, universities and systems whose members share a learning- and teaching-centered culture, a historic commitment to underserved student populations and a dedication to research and creativity that advances their regions’ economic progress and cultural development.

NASPA is the leading association for the advancement, health, and sustainability of the student affairs profession. Our work provides high-quality professional development, advocacy, and research for 14,000 members in all 50 states, 25 countries, and 8 U.S. territories.

TurboVote is a project of Democracy Works, a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization based in Brooklyn, N.Y., that is passionate about building the democracy of the future. TurboVote is a service that makes voting easy. When students sign up, TurboVote keeps track of all their elections—local, state and national. If students wish to register, update their addresses or request absentee ballots, TurboVote sends them all the forms and information they need with pre-addressed, pre-stamped envelopes. For every election, TurboVote sends text message and email reminders to all users with important election information, dates and deadlines, to ensure that they never miss another election. 

Campus Media Contacts

Alvernia University: Joseph J. Cicala, (601) 796-8211, joe.cicala@alvernia.edu

Arizona State University: William Valencia, (480) 466-8106, William.Valencia@asu.edu

Chatham University: Dana Brown, (412) 365-2725, dbrown@chatham.edu

Florida State College at Jacksonville: Jill Johnson, (904) 632-5016, jill.johnson@fscj.edu

Illinois State University: Noha Shawki, (309) 438-3861, nsshawk@ilstu.edu

Missouri State University: Michael Stout, (417) 836-5357, MStout@missouristate.edu

Northeastern Illinois University: Dana Navarro, (773) 442-4227, d-navarro@neiu.edu

Stanford University: Colleen Coffey, (650) 725-2865, ccoffey7@stanford.edu

Texas A&M University-Central Texas: Morgan Lewing, (254) 519-5713, morgan.lewing@ct.tamus.edu

The College at Brockport: State University of New York: Karen Podsiadly, (585) 395-2211, kpodsiad@brockport.edu

University of Nebraska-Lincoln: Linda Major, (402) 472-3755, Lmajor1@unl.edu

University of Nebraska-Kearney: Joseph Oravecz, (308) 865-8528, oraveczja@unk.edu