Summary
The Election Challenge is a nonpartisan assignment in which college students are challenged to apply psychological theory and research findings to persuade at least three people to vote for a political candidate of their choice. The goals are to:
Provide students with a hands-on learning experience
Increase voting and civic engagement among young people
Strengthen the voice students have in choosing political leaders
Although this assignment was originally developed for use with students in the United States, it can be employed in any democratic country holding elections. The assignment is also suitable for use in a wide variety of courses beyond psychology, including sociology, communication, political science, social studies, media studies, persuasion, and marketing.
Student Instructions
(2020 U.S. presidential election version)
Your "Election Challenge" is to use psychology to persuade at least three people to vote for a U.S. presidential candidate of your choice on Tuesday, November 3. In each case, these people should be individuals who would otherwise vote for another candidate or would not vote at all.
To give you enough time to carry out this assignment, it's being distributed in early October, even though your paper will not be due until one week after the election (that way, you can report how many votes you ended up generating for your candidate). For voting hours and locations, registration deadlines, and other information, see The Election Challenge.
Part I: Try to Secure Votes from at Least Three People
In the first part of this assignment, your task is to get at least three people to vote for the U.S. presidential candidate of your choice. These people can be:
Note: The people you approach don't need to live on or near campus—you're welcome to seek support from eligible voters anywhere in the country. Also, please note that you don't need to gain three votes to get credit for the assignment; the challenge is simply to make your best effort and analyze the experience. Even if you're not eligible to vote in the upcoming U.S. election, see if you can persuade three eligible voters to support your chosen candidate. To make the assignment as fair as possible, students who are U.S. citizens should not trade their own vote in order to persuade others to support their candidate, and they should not count their own vote among the three.
Part II: Write About Your Experience
Turn in a one-page description of your activities, the reactions people had, and your best post-election estimate of how many votes you ultimately secured for your candidate. When drafting your report, make sure it explicitly relates to concepts from the course.
Tips on Implementation
Here are some tips for instructors on how to implement the assignment:
Provide context. Explain to students—in a nonpartisan way—why voting matters and how it relates to topics they care about, such as climate change, immigration, student debt, LGBTQ rights, and social justice.
Make it social. Invite students to form small groups that vote together. For most U.S. college students, the 2020 election will be their first chance to vote in a presidential election, and it's expected to have historic levels of voter turnout—a social event that many students won't want to miss.
Make it easy and inclusive. Give students local information on how to register and where to vote, including information on absentee ballots for those who have disabilities, lack transportation, or are registered to vote elsewhere. Even though international students won't be able to cast a vote, they can still participate in The Election Challenge by generating support for a preferred candidate.
Let students opt out. Most students enjoy this assignment, but instructors may wish to offer an alternative for students who would rather not try it. One such alternative would be to let students write a research paper on how to increase voter turnout.
Focus on turnout. Explain that changing people's choice of candidate is much harder than convincing them to vote, and that it's usually easiest to meet The Election Challenge by focusing on voter turnout. Studies suggest that one of the most effective ways to boost turnout is through personal conversations between people who trust each other.
Link the assignment to course topics. Keep the emphasis on learning, not on politics. For example, courses in psychology, communication, or marketing might schedule the assignment to follow a lecture on persuasion or a textbook chapter covering topics such as:
Describe approaches that work. In addition to discussing the persuasion techniques above, describe specific approaches that increase voting. For instance:
One effective technique is for students to ask people to sign a pledge to vote for a particular candidate, and then text or email signers a reminder of the pledge on election day. Likewise, students can download a mobile app such as Vote With Me, which allows users to send voting reminders to people in their phone's contact list.
Studies find that when people predict that they'll vote—and are asked to explain the reasons why they intend to vote—their chances of actually voting jump by 5-25%. Asking people to plan when and how they'll vote also tends to increase the odds that they'll follow through.
People are more likely to vote when they believe that their peers are voting. Consequently, one effective election-day technique is for students to communicate that they just voted (e.g., by posting a message on social media or wearing an "I voted" sticker or button). This technique helps establish a social norm of voting, model the behavior, and remind others to vote.
Add local events to the mix. Let students know about election-related campus and community events, or host some events yourself. For example, you might invite students to watch a televised candidate debate with you one evening and discuss persuasion techniques used in the debate (popcorn optional).
Debrief after the election. After the election is over, consider scheduling a class "debriefing" so that students can discuss which persuasion strategies proved effective, which ones didn't, and what they learned from the experience.