VOTING
WORK
At CCA, we’re committed to working with students, faculty, staff, and election officials to reduce barriers to student voting. The CCA Voting Coalition, which is overseen by the Creative Citizens in Action initiative, has been actively working to grow institutional commitment for democratic engagement since 2018. Its mission is to increase student voting rates, help students form the habits of active and informed citizenship, and make democratic participation a core value on campus.
A student stops by a practice ballot voting event organized by Natasha Haugnes’s Writing 2: Seeing Citizenship class, fall 2022. Photo by Nicholas Lea Bruno.
CCA is one of over 231 campuses designated as a “Voter Friendly Campus.” The Voter Friendly Campus initiative, led by national nonpartisan organizations Campus Vote Project (CVP) and NASPA – Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education, holds participating institutions accountable for planning and implementing practices that encourage their students to register and vote.
Since 2020, CCA has participated in the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge, developing and implementing data-driven action plans to improve civic learning, political engagement, and voter participation. As a part of the challenge, CCA’s President, David Howse, has signed the Higher Education Presidents’ Commitment to Full Student Voter Participation, which commits CCA to include opportunities for voter registration in systems and processes that reach virtually every college student. Based on CCA’s 2022 Voting Report, which detailed the CCA Voting Coalition’s efforts to execute the 2022 Action Plan, ALL IN included CCA in its inaugural cohort of “Most Engaged Campuses for College Student Voting.”
CAMPUS ACTIVATION
Polling Location
CCA has hosted a polling place in every election since fall 2018 and its convenient on-campus location provides easy access for our students to vote. CCA’s Blattner Hall polling place is the only polling place in San Francisco Precinct 7002. In November 2022, voter turnout was 565 people, representing 71.34% of registered voters, exceeding both district and SF voter turnout averages.
CAMPUS ACTIVATION
2022 Election Week Activation
Each election season, the CCA Voting Coalition organizes campus-based voter registration drives and “get out the vote” events, and offers support for student activities focused on voter outreach. These programs are included in the Deborah and Kenneth Novack Creative Citizens Series. In fall 2022, the Creative Citizens Series concluded with the Election Week Activation, which featured A Crystal for Care, an interactive installation built by the CCA@CCA Student Fellows, alongside six projects by CCA faculty and their students, designed to generate broader civic engagement related to the 2022 U.S. Midterm Election.
These projects included practice voting events organized by Natasha Haugnes’ Writing 2: Seeing Citizenship class, posters addressing campus issues by Steve Jones’ Agitprop class, an altar reflecting on our ancestors’ effects on our sociopolitical situation by Acacia Woods Chan’s Writing 1 class, ceramic soapboxes by Nathan Lynch’s Clown Shoes class, and posters highlighting political issues by students in Aaron Gonzalez's Personal Publishing class. Additionally, a project by faculty Jasmine Zhang invited non-citizens to participate in American politics through the creation of fake ballot propositions printed on toilet paper.
SPOTLIGHTED PROJECT
VOTE VOTE VOTE CCA
In celebration of National Voter Registration Day and Constitution Day, which coincided on September 17, 2024, professors Chris Treggiari (First Year Core Studio) and Michael Wertz (Illustration) guided CCA students, staff, and faculty through screen-printing voting t-shirts and posters while members of the CCA Voting Coalition helped students register to vote and request absentee ballots. Event participants were also invited to fill out activity sheets designed by the Oakland Lowdown—a community studio for local news and art—that asked, “If you were an elected official in San Francisco, what would your first act be?” Rounding out the event, the CCA Libraries presented a pop-up library of books on the Constitution and the intersection of art and politics.
CAMPUS ACTIVATION
2024 ELECTION DAY ACTIVATIONS
On November 5, 2024, all corners of the CCA campus were activated by students, staff, and faculty preparing for, participating in, or engaging in conversation about the Presidential Election. The CCA Voting Coalition arranged for Blattner Residence Hall to serve as a polling location for precinct 7002 and staffed a table outside Makers Cafe that community members could stop by if they needed a refresher about what was on the California ballot or had questions about their voting rights.
Meanwhile, in the Hooper Atrium, Carol Elkovich (Associate Professor, First Year Core Studio) presented an exhibition of activist collages by first-year students, and Jasmine Zhang (Adjunct I, First Year Core Studio) hosted a screen printing event geared toward international students. In the Nave, students in courses led by Kim Anno (Professor, Critical Ethnic Studies) and Isabel Samaras (Adjunct II, Illustration) installed election-related artwork.
In the evening, CCA students were invited to Makers Cafe to watch the results of the 2024 Presidential Election. Students enrolled in American Politics, taught by Maxwell Leung (Associate Professor, Critical Studies), presented their final projects, which analyzed and predicted who the seven battleground states would choose for the next President of the United States. The watch party aimed to provide an engaging space for the campus community and offer an opportunity to consider the implications of the election results for the country’s future.
