Around campus, you may have noticed workers engaging with students and motivating them to vote in the upcoming election. As the upcoming presidential election sits on the horizon, Wisconsin remains a crucial swing state with organizations getting involved to turn out the student vote.
One of these organizations is Rise at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. While not officially affiliated with Rise Free Organization, the nonpartisan student group empowers student voices by helping them create a plan to vote and providing the resources needed to register.
Hannah Cacciapaglia, a third-year political science and gender and women’s studies major, began working with Rise as a paid organizer in February. One of her goals is to get more people to vote by reducing obstacles with registration.
“We try to build excitement around voting and make it feel less like a ‘civic duty’ and more of something you are excited to do, as it will affect your day-to-day campus life after Election Day,” Cacciapaglia told The Daily Cardinal.
Cacciapaglia said the organization doesn’t directly register students to vote, but they have other tools to get more students involved in the election process.
“Right now we’re focused on collecting pledges to vote from students and community members, but primarily students,” she said.
Each team member gets several pledges on any given day depending on the amount of students who engage with them and the location of their set-up, Cacciapaglia said. Team members fan out to busy locations across campus, including Library Mall, East Campus Mall and Gordon Dining and Event Center. A typical day sees them netting around 20 to 25 pledges.
As an out-of-state student from New England, Cacciapaglia said she faced barriers to voting in Wisconsin even with her personal interest in social justice and the political process.
Rise member AJ Dehnke, a third-year journalism major student, told the Cardinal voter barriers include voter ID laws that make it more difficult for students, particularly out-of-state students, to vote in Wisconsin.
Cacciapaglia said it is even more important for an organization like Rise—which emphasizes the student vote in Wisconsin—to make voting information accessible for those who may not necessarily be as interested in politics as her.
As part of their campaign, Rise also strives to break-down concerns on where and how to vote. Cacciapaglia hopes hearing this information from another student makes it less intimidating.
In fact, Dehnke joined the organization in September after learning about it from Cacciapaglia in order to motivate students to engage with the election.
“Especially since early summer, I sensed a lot of apathy around the election, and I wanted to help alleviate that among the student body and get as many people to show up and vote as possible,” Dehnke said.
To help these students vote, Rise has created the UW-Madison Voter Guide. The graphic walks people through how to vote in Wisconsin, which can also be found on their Instagram page.
In addition to Wisconsin’s status as a key swing state, students’ votes on local issues such as housing and transportation are also important, Dehnke said.
Dehnke said this work is impactful as he feels the group is reaching a lot of students.
“I’ve done a couple of class talks where I go in front of lecture halls and present information about voting, and there have been a couple people that came up to me afterwards and thanked me for doing this,” he said.
As a nonpartisan organization, Rise doesn’t push a particular candidate. He also said through Rise’s research, they have determined if people make a plan to vote, they are three times more likely to actually cast a ballot.
“We just want to give people all the information they need in order to make an informed decision that reflects their values,” Dehnke said.
