Jon Fansmith: Hello everyone and welcome to the October 7th, 2024, issue, episode. Episode? I guess episode of dotEDU live. I am one of your hosts, Jon Fansmith, senior vice president for government relations here at the American Council on Education, and I'm joined by my other co-host, Sarah Spreitzer. Hey Sarah.
Sarah Spreitzer: Hey Jon. Can you remind me why we aren't doing this podcast outside in the beautiful weather?
Jon Fansmith: We should definitely be outside. It's what, the third day of sunshine after about it felt like seven straight months of rain I think.
Sarah Spreitzer: A million years of rain, a million years, a lot of rain.
Jon Fansmith: But we are doing this inside in part because we are joined by an illustrious colleague of ours who is going to talk about a very important issue. Pete McDonough. There you are. Come on in. Pete is ACE's vice president general counsel, and probably I'm guessing a despondent Mets fan this morning after watching America's favorite team, the Phillies, take them out-
Peter McDonough: Hello folks. No, Jon. I'm very happy leaving Philadelphia tied one-to-one and coming back to New York. That's as good as a Met fan can truly reasonably hope for. So it's going-
Jon Fansmith: It's all about momentum, man. We took momentum back. That's it. Well, Pete is going to be on to talk with us about more than baseball, no matter how much I'd like to talk about baseball. Pete's actually going to touch on a very important issue, voting and civic participation on college campuses. ACE has some resources out there and Pete's going to talk a little bit about what we're looking at as we approach, what are we now, less than 30 days from the election, Sarah? 29.
Sarah Spreitzer: Yes. At least less than 30 days. I just got my DC mail-in ballot, so I'm planning to fill mine out this week.
Jon Fansmith: I am looking for mine as well. But this is something obviously ACE has been focused on for decades, encouraging, enabling civic participation including student voting. And just related to that, if people haven't seen it already, this is part of the reason why. We also recently, as of yesterday, had an ad, a full-page open letter to the presidential candidates in The New York Times, really seeking to elevate some of the issues we see as being important and continuing that history of a deep civic engagement on behalf of our colleges and universities. So we want to elevate the importance of higher education to the country and the central role our campuses play in building America. If you haven't seen that yet, there's links to it on ACE social media as in the print edition of The New York Times. If you have that around, feel free to take a look at it. And I think our producers are posting a link to that now too. So definitely worth checking out. There's a follow-up. We have a web page up in support of the effort, so encourage you to look at those and share them if you would like.
The ad is really focused on how higher ed builds America, but I'll take a moment here at the top also to point out, we have a lot of campus communities that are still recovering from Hurricane Helene all the way up the east coast from Florida through Georgia up into North Carolina. And we know that some of you are participating from institutions in those regions that were impacted. We are tremendously appreciative of you finding the time with everything that's going on to join us here today. We're also tremendously appreciative of what we've seen and I think the country has seen, where campuses are doing a lot to help their communities out. There are reports we've seen about students and staff out volunteering in their communities, working with first responders, medical teams, going out from campuses to serve communities, psychological mental health teams helping in support of people who are in recovery. Just really across the board, colleges and universities doing what they can do to help their campuses recover and rebuild in the wake of this disaster. So tremendously appreciative of everyone for those efforts for the support you might be giving from elsewhere in the country in terms of making contributions or doing other things to support our colleague institution. So really in a lot of ways an example of higher ed at its best.
But Sarah, there's some other things going on outside of the things we touched on top happening in Congress, a few things throughout before the election.
Sarah Spreitzer: Yeah, I think a few things that kind of happened as they were leaving town and that we know that they're going to have to address right in the lame duck when they come back. Top of my mind is the reauthorization of the National Defense Authorization Act, the NDAA, which is the must-pass bill that every year has become more and more a vehicle for things that can't pass independently and also a vehicle for putting in things that impact our institutions, especially around things like campus operations, around research security and other things.
And so we are very focused this year that there is a provision in the Senate version of the NDAA, not in the House version, that would create a new process for the Department of Defense to have regarding Title VI procedure. So usually Title VI is taken care of by the Department of Education's Office of Civil Rights. That doesn't mean that you don't have Title VI obligations under the Department of Defense, but the Department of Defense has historically referred complaints on Title VI back to the Department of Ed when it deals with an institution of higher education. Part of that is because you could lose all of your federal funding if you are out of compliance with Title VI, and a huge chunk of that federal funding is your Title IV Federal Student Aid dollars.
And so unfortunately this language would create almost their own enforcement mechanism at the Department of Defense. So you can imagine being an institution and having two investigations going on, one led by the Department of Education, one led by the Department of Defense, and then perhaps different outcomes. And so we are working hard to educate members about why this is a problematic provision.
There's also some research security provisions that are pretty broad, including one that would require researchers accepting Department of Defense research dollars to agree not to work with China or any China-related entity or other countries of concern. And we think that's probably a bit broad and will likely discourage some important research from happening in the US.
So the reason we're talking about this now even though Congress is out of town, is because staff are using the time to start to conference the Senate and the House versions of the bill. And I would expect that they'll have something that they'll want to push forward when we return from the lame duck. But we are working on a community letter that will be coming out later this week that we'll be pushing out for folks to use when they're talking with their members, especially those that might be on the House or Senate Armed Services.
Jon Fansmith: And there's the one other big thing obviously coming up in the lame duck too, Sarah, on top of the NDAA, Congress just finished before they left town, immediately before they left down a continuing resolution to extend federal funding up until December 20th. That will be the new deadline, at which point theoretically if Congress doesn't act, there will be a government shutdown. Certainly I think the expectations are that they'll be able to figure out some resolution, but what exactly that will look like, the elections will play a big part in. And again, Hurricane Helene, other tornadoes, or not tornadoes, sorry, hurricanes seen to be on the horizon. Very likely that that will be an opportunity for Congress also put some money towards disaster relief to plus up federal funding for different agencies and provide direct relief to states and communities that have been impacted.
So a lot of reason to think they will get something done in December, but exactly what that might look like will be the final decision or yet another hunt into a new year and a new presidential administration. I think we'll have to wait and see. Right?
Sarah Spreitzer: Yeah, and I was kind of smiling there when you said December 20th, because they like getting that date as close to the holiday break as possible to try and pressure members into doing something before they leave town. And so December 20th is pretty close. I mean unless they wanted to make it December 24th, but December 20th is probably pushing it.
But yeah. And it's funny, Jon, with Congress being out of town, it's nice to actually have some time to think about things. And I know many of our campuses are thinking, especially today about the October 7th anniversary of the Hamas attack on Israel, and what that means for their campus community, and obviously having conversations and looking back at the challenges and some of the unrest that we had the previous year. Yeah.
Jon Fansmith: Yeah, and I know that Pete has been actively involved in our efforts communicating with our campuses. We have some resources we prepared about preparing for the fall, which I think our producers will drop in the chat. It's obviously either an election or this anniversary, and certainly some of the media reports we've seen about student groups looking to have protests of varying scale, some quite peaceful and calm vigils, others where they're more disruptive, activities are planned. Certainly I know colleges and universities have a lot of focus and attention on that this week and will. So we have some resources. Hopefully they'll be helpful to you.
But the other side of the issue, of the issues campuses, we're looking at hanging to fall these elections, Pete, and they have a big impact on campus for lots of reasons. But in particular because campuses have a role in the elections and it's voting and in students exercising their civic rights. You want to catch people up on what you think about as we're heading into this deadline, approaching the elections?
Peter McDonough: Yeah sure, Jon. And maybe just picking up on your comment just now. I know we've talked about this before in a variety of forums and one is in an issue brief that we put out periodically during election cycles and have done again this year. I think we'll drop it into the chat about political campaign related activity, and importantly student voting.
But the issue that you just mentioned is, what's the institutional role? And I'm going to start maybe because I'm a lawyer with what's the institutional obligation, and then I think let's spend most of our time talking about the broader context there.
But what's the institutional obligation? Well, as many of us know, and I hope frankly everybody who is involved in any way working for a college knows, colleges actually have an obligation under the Higher Education Act for the last 20+ years to make good faith efforts in connection with all federal and gubernatorial election cycles to help students register to vote.
Now in a lot of states we have now passed, if you will, the registration deadline. There's still a week or so in some states. New Jersey for instance has a 21-day deadline as an example. But institutions are required as a condition of receiving federal funding to "distribute a mail voter registration form to each student enrolled in a degree or certificate program." And it says, and physically in attendance at the institution, and to make such forms widely available to students at the institution, unless the state where the institution is has same-day registration laws.
Now for a lot of schools, particularly those that have an online presence, they may of course choose to distribute to all of their students, whether physically present or not in the same medium, typically probably these days online.
But the fundamental point here is that institutions are expected to help our students to vote, help our students to register. And if there's one thing that seems clear among all others, it's minimizing and ideally extinguishing confusion about how to do that, and where to do that, and when to do that, is paramount.
So as we've been talking to people over the last months, it's really I think come down to the recognition that this is a local game, and unfortunately it's a game that some are playing because there's strategy. And so depending upon where one is and what is the political and strategic political climate and gameplay in that location, there's folks that are trying to make it harder to vote and there's folks that are trying to make it easier to vote for everyone.
But let's just talk for a moment about this constituency, what I would call younger voters, campus voters, students. Well, I think we all know that there's perceptions and maybe some realities about strategic assessment of which way folks associated with campuses will vote. Students of course, but also staff and faculty.
So what we've seen is depending upon where one sits, either efforts at making it harder to vote if you're on a campus or associated with a campus, or maybe making it easier to vote if you're on a campus or associated with a campus.
And this comes in a context of some pretty significant numbers. We noted in our issue brief that approximately 50 percent of people 18 to 29, and 66 percent of college students voted in the 2020 presidential election. The belief is that this certainly is going to be at least as significant in terms of numbers and percentages this go around. This group is going to compose nearly one-fifth of the electorate, and it's estimated that about 16 million people will have their first opportunity to vote in a presidential election. Many of them are our students.
What also I think we've seen and folks have appreciated is that increasingly, younger people care about issues in this polarized environment. The issues, whether they be about abortion contraception, whether they be about guns, whether they be about immigration, whether they be about DACA as a subset of that, whether they be about the economy and first jobs, they care about issues.
And so we have a lot of strategy focused on particular locales because as we also know, the battleground states are less than 10, some estimated seven. And within those battleground states, it's a game on the ground to, if you will, battle county by county and sometimes town by town. And there are some cities that are dominated by folks associated with their campuses, towns as well.
So this is a moment now where what we can do, in a nonpartisan way, of course, is help sort of limit and ideally dismiss the confusion, and help with the clarity of what one can do in order to cast a vote on election day, earlier if there's early voting, mail in, and for students, where? May I vote where I'm sitting? Do I have to vote back home because I missed registration, or for whatever other reason I'd like to vote back home. So I'll stop there and we can pick up the conversation with little bits of sub-issues here if we'd like.
Sarah Spreitzer: So Pete, we did have a question from the audience, from somebody listening about whether or not there's evidence of student voting swinging elections, especially in the presidential cycle. And I think you kind of touched on that, that this is an engaged part of voting public. But we have seen, as you were talking about looking at it by county, to district, to smaller groups. Can you talk a bit about what recently happened at Purdue where previously they'd had voting sites on campus, but I think it was the local voting board or somebody decided that they weren't going to do that in this upcoming presidential election? What does the campus do when they're confronted with something like that?
Peter McDonough: Yeah, so clarity and confidence in what the facts really are as we approach election day seem most important. So Sarah, what I think you're referencing is again, ground game efforts to either make geographically and practically casting a vote easier or harder.
So there are a variety of examples of what's happened in that regard. And your mentioning of Purdue is just one of them. I think if I'm recalling Purdue correctly, there had in previous elections been a very, very easily accessible, centrally located place for early voting. And like a number of jurisdictions around the country, there's been efforts at reining in the number of early voting locations, very often in a context in which there is an articulated concern about voter fraud, and the alleged need to be attentive to fewer spots with greater security, if you will. Whether that's true or not, I'm not here to judge, but that's the context in which these things are arising.
This question about whether young folks or campus students in particular are potentially impacting an election, during the summer, The New York Times, and we noted this in our issue brief about political campaign related activity and voting. The New York Times observed that the then-President Biden's path to victory, now vice President Harris in Wisconsin runs right through Dane County where the University of Wisconsin-Madison is located.
So the hyper focus on a particular county with the impact and the hyper focus on a particular constituency, the students, staff, and faculty there, this is the strategic stuff that's happening. And you can be assured that in addition to what's been going on in the run-up to registration and election in terms of both sides trying to work the practicality issues if you will, there's the potential that there will be day of and day after judicial activity, efforts at preventing access to the polls, efforts at enabling access that are argued to be inappropriate.
And this is probably a good place to circle around and talk to something else, talk about something else in our voting and political campaign related activity issue brief, which is what campuses can do. At Purdue, for example, it wouldn't surprise me at all if right outside the location where students had been able to do early voting, there could be shuttle buses that are now set up to take students to the closest location, even if it's 10 or 15 or 20 minutes away. If those buses are provided by a campus, if they're nonpartisan, if it's to enable access to voting, that's permissible.
We have states where the mail-in ballot requires a stamp. Most students don't know how to buy a stamp. They've never been in a post office. Question for a campus. Can you provide stamps, sort of in the same way maybe campuses provide condoms? Is there a reason you can't? It's nonpartisan. There's no reason you can't. You certainly provide other things to students, maybe a stamp to vote.
So we're seeing thought going into enabling access, clarity, separating fact from fiction about what is permissible, what is a student able to do on election day.
Jon Fansmith: Yeah. And Pete, I want to actually go back a minute. Because you talked a little bit about, well, and just now you talked about the things you can do to make it easier for students to vote to enable support them in their efforts to vote. But this issue of fraud, right? And you talked about it's not for us to judge necessarily the merits of these allegations. But regardless of the merits, we've seen since 2020 when certainly former President Trump raised the idea of voter fraud on a large scale for the presidential election, efforts in a number of states that have sought in many ways to make it harder not specifically for college students or for campuses to vote, but there have been these efforts to curtail. Can you talk a little bit about the trends you've seen and what that's looked like, and then particularly what that might mean for colleges and universities specifically?
Peter McDonough: Yeah, sure. So just in this year alone, there's been nine states that have enacted a total of 18 more restrictive voting laws, just in this year. And if you add that to what's gone on since the last presidential election in 2020, at least 30 states have enacted 78 restrictive laws. And by restrictive laws, I mean ones that practically speaking make it more challenging or harder to vote.
Now as you're saying, Jon, maybe with evidence, some jurisdictions have said, "Well, this is necessary in order for us to be confident about minimizing and eliminating, ideally, voter fraud." Again, it's others to judge. I'm having a hard time in what I've been reading, seeing a lot of this evidence.
In Ohio as an example, Ohio now only allows early voting drop boxes at the County Board of Elections. Now, I suspect if we were to go and read the run-up to this, there's probably a fair amount of conversation and concern about fraudulent voting. I don't know what the facts are. But I think our purpose here today is to just recognize that with 29 days or so to go to the election, it's not about debating the merits and engaging in a, if you will, a potentially politicized conversation about whether there should or shouldn't be restrictions, whether there should or shouldn't be expansions. But to be clear locally as to what are the rules of the road over the next 29 days, and be as helpful as we can to our communities to share that information through the various types of channels that our students and others on campus get information these days.
And by the way, I don't want to suggest that everything's been restrictive. There's been a number of states that have passed more expansive laws, oddly even some of those states that have also passed restrictive laws.
So if we go back over the last four years, I think there's been about 40 states or so that have passed restrictive laws. And I can do math. If I add the 40 to the number of states, the 30 that have done restrictive ones, that's more states than we have. So you can see that there's been a, shall I say, gamesmanship that's been taking place, ebbing and flowing. Some of that may have been due to turnover in state legislatures in that era, if there have been, or other reasons that you two appreciate far more than me in terms of the political back and forth that goes on not only at the federal level, but at the state level.
But that's where we are. A lot has changed since 2020. And maybe that's another takeaway. Our campuses should not presume that whatever they've had up on a website since 2020, whatever links they've provided to folks since 2020 are the proper ones, the ideal ones to provide. We note in our issue brief in terms of links, that one simple way that an institution can help is by distributing the online National Mail Voter Registration Form for students that frankly aren't going to get up in the morning, or find their way for early voting or day of voting, at least they'd be able to participate by mail voting.
And that form enables students to register if there's still time and if they have it in each state to change or update their address if there's still time. And it also contains, and importantly, really importantly, the rules and regulations for each state.
One would hope that a campus would pull out of that, the particular rules for where the campus is. And note, these are our rules. If you intend to vote here, this is how much time you still have, etc. But if you're planning to vote elsewhere, look here. And there's of course a whole number of other online resources. We put a lot of them in our issue brief as well.
But getting to clarity, getting to simplicity, understanding what one's rights are as a student seems hugely important, particularly since they might be met by somebody who's trying to discourage them from voting.
Sarah Spreitzer: So Pete, that actually leads to a question that we had from the audience. What advice should universities extend to students to having their right to vote contested on election day? Is there anything institutions can do to help with that specific scenario?
Peter McDonough: Well, I guess Sarah, I'm going to start sounding like a broken record here. But if I were a young person, particularly if I was a first-time voter, particularly if I am only a few months located in a place that I had never lived before, maybe for the first time I'm venturing to a county location that I've never been before. I'd want to be confident. And if I'm confronted by somebody who's questioning me or trying to in some way intimidate me from taking a few steps closer to the location to vote, I'd want to be confident in my right to vote. I'd want to be confident in my right to vote where I'm standing.
How does that happen? Well look, we're all more confident when we know the facts. We're all more confident when we know how they apply to the situation we're in at the moment. And we're all more confident when we know the words to say to somebody about those things.
So if a school can do that as well and do it clearly, simply, and in multiple channels of communication with their community, I think we're helping the students. We're helping faculty and staff. We're also doing things that aligns with that obligation under the Higher Education Act to help enable voting. So it would be clarity and assurance of what the relevant facts are.
Jon Fansmith: And Pete, one of the things we talked about, and Sarah raised this with Purdue, the voting station on Purdue's campus served the entire community. And we've seen that too in other reports of other communities where the campuses are often hubs for civic activity and civic participation.
Do we go into in the brief what institutions can and can't do in this regards to sort of lean in? Not just in terms of serving their students, ensuring they have the, to know that they can go to their polling place confidently with the right to vote, but also beyond that how they serve the local community, what they can do to provide support, allow residents in the surrounding area to be more civically engaged to access the right to vote?
Peter McDonough: Yeah, it's a good point, Jon. So for those who have visited our issue brief in the past, that for years has talked about politically related campaign activity including if you will, examples of dos and don'ts, we have those dos and don'ts as examples relating to voting and voter registration as well.
I mean, just to pick up on a couple of things that you've alluded to and I have as well, schools absolutely can and frankly should conduct voting information programming. They could do it in any way that reaches their communities. Maybe it doesn't just apply to their students. Maybe it's a terrific staff-related ad, if you will. Certainly different communities, different employers have different rules about how much time off an employer will give the employee, paid time off to enable voting. Well, that ought to be clear and easy to find for a staff person for sure.
And get-out-the-vote activities. It's irrelevant whether surveys or otherwise, what might show that the folks who are getting out to vote from a particular town, community, campus, employer are more likely to vote one way or the other. It's a nonpartisan activity and undertaking by a campus to conduct get-out-the-vote activities. It doesn't turn partisan because there might be surveys, whether of people leaving the polling sites or otherwise that show that the percentage of folks who actually showed up leaned this way or that way. So get-out-the-vote activities, nonpartisan, entirely permissible.
And as I've said, probably ad nauseum at this stage, providing students with a clear summary of their registration and voting rules of the road, huge. Providing clarity regarding those mail-in options, huge. Providing transportation to polling locations. Absolutely.
One of the challenges of course in this environment is there could be, particularly for our public institutions, some state restrictions or challenges that have been imposed in the context of what I've been describing of more restrictive laws. It wouldn't shock me if some states have inhibited the ability of schools that receive, state institutions to provide that type of transportation. Maybe they've done it through tightening appropriations, maybe they've done it through needing a deadline to confirm that buses are going to be used for that purpose.
But these are all the sorts of things that individual schools and individual locations need to look at and be clear about and then be, shall I say, steadfast in their belief that they've got the facts right.
Sarah Spreitzer: And Pete, has this ever been tested in court cases before? Have there been instances where somebody has said, "I think your get-out-the-vote activities are partisan because we expect that population is going to vote a certain way?" Are there thresholds or anything that you can point to and guidance for our institutions if they feel like they're going to be accused of doing this in a partisan manner?
Peter McDonough: So Sarah, I can't personally answer the precise question you've asked about challenges and maybe outcomes too. An argument that the get-out-the-vote activity produces a nonpartisan result, and hence it is a nonpartisan act. I would say that the odds of that surviving on an appeal are zero, right?
So we all appreciate that there could be for whatever reason, a moment where in the context of an injunction hearing, a judge rules in a particular way. But you're really onto something I think is important to appreciate, which is that in every state, there is an army of lawyers prepared to challenge and enable challenges, and also to help and to enable helping on election day. And as increasingly we call it election season, because of early voting and the like.
Again, we're back to, we make all those things easier for everybody if the facts are clear, the facts are known, and we don't find our students, faculty, or staff if you will, doing things in a way that makes it easier to challenge or harder to support.
Jon Fansmith: Yeah. And I think those armies of lawyers are always there in every election cycle. But given how tight the margins were in 2020 and what we see now, as you mentioned Pete, seven swing states where the difference in the polls is 1 percent or less in terms of being determinative when the election, there's going to be laser like focus like you, I think really astutely pointed out, right down to the district level. This is not just statewide, this is not national. This is going to be laser focus and lots of attention from lawyers and others about how votes are going, and what impacts, and what voting places look like, and who's registering, because there will be efforts to challenge as part of winning the election as much as good governance and oversight.
One of the things that's actually been brought up somewhat in that context, and I know you're familiar with this a little bit from work with some other groups. But this year, the Department of Education, the administration allowed for Federal Work-Study recipients to work in nonpartisan voter efforts, working in polling places, staffing polling places, doing other kinds of activities. Again, nonpartisan ones.
That ruling, that determination was a little bit controversial. We saw some pushback from particularly congressional Republicans about this. And we had a question in the chat, somebody asking essentially, and maybe this is more for me and Sarah than for you Pete, but I want to hear your take first. What are the prospects for being able to use Federal Work-Study for voter registration if Republicans control Congress and the White House? And first Pete, add to my short summary of what the issue was and then your thoughts. And then Sarah, I'd like to hear your thoughts too.
Peter McDonough: Well, Jon, let's talk a little bit about the here and now, which I can do a little bit easier and maybe Sarah and you about looking forward if you will. But again, focusing on the 29 or 28 days, the rules of the rules right now, and as we noted in our issue brief over the summer, and this hasn't changed to my knowledge, to your point, the Department of Education did clarify the Federal Work-Study funds may be used for student employment by a federal, state, local, or tribal public agency for civil engagement work that is not associated with a particular interest or group. So let's take an example. What could that be? Well, those get-out-the-vote efforts that I was mentioning before. Voter assistance at polling places. This business about what's reality, what's the facts?
What about, probably going to age myself a little bit, but what about when a gaggle of freshmen show up in a group of 20 like they do on their first day of campus, and they've all convinced themselves to ride or walk, or get Ubers over to a polling site, and when they get there, they're confronted by stuff that looks a little scary? There's efforts at checking their status, questioning whether they're permitted to vote. We could imagine that if we're talking about a campus that has a high percentage of folks who look to some, maybe they're not U.S. citizens, they might be challenged.
Well, could those federal funds be used by institutions to have, shall I say, supports there for people? Just in a nonpartisan way to give them comfort, probably yes.
What about working for a government official, a county office for instance, that's responsible for election administration? Absolutely, yes. I think I've read that we're going to have some counties where votes are going to be counted by hand. If we take this to its logical extreme, those Federal Work-Study funds could be used to pay for students to help if a county official was willing, to help count the votes.
So those are the kinds of things that could be done here and now. They're fraught with a whole lot of baggage that might not inure to the benefit of the particular campus or campus and particular campus leadership in the location where they are.
Sarah Spreitzer: Yeah. I think, Jon, to your question, there's always been a strong community service component to Federal Work-Study. I mean, a percentage of your Federal Work-Study hours overall at an institution has to go to community service. And so if it's nonpartisan, get out the vote, voter support, I would think that that would be allowable unless specifically said that it's not allowed, no matter who's in the administration because that's in the current statute.
Jon Fansmith: Yeah. No, and I think to the specific question too about were Republicans to take control of Congress and the White House, would that stand? It's an interesting question in part because I think a lot of the criticisms you heard was that the Biden administration, it was the Biden administration made the initial determination as to the allowability of it. At that time, running for reelection and thinking certainly that perhaps younger voters might be more inclined towards the Democratic ticket than the Republican ticket. You do wonder a little bit if there was an incumbent Republican administration, if they would be as critical of an effort to ensure that there was supports out there for the kinds of nonpartisan activities Pete, I think very clearly outlined.
You don't know for sure. But certainly based on the reaction we've got, it did seem to split along partisan lines. So certainly, you would wonder about whether that interpretation of what is allowable work would hold up with a Republican administration.
Peter McDonough: And Jon and Sarah, just bringing it back to the here and now for a second, just on the chance of somebody listening to this says, "Oh my goodness, let's just see whether we can expedite enabling the use of these funds over the next three weeks or at least offer our students that opportunity." I just note that on page six of our issue brief relating to voting and politically related campaign activities, we list at least three or four sites that have toolkits relating to campus Work-Study. And so you don't have to go and sit down and if you will, read the mind-numbing stuff and try to interpret it. There's interpretations that we've linked to.
Jon Fansmith: You've already read the mind-numbing stuff, right Pete?
Sarah Spreitzer: So Pete, that leads to, I think our last audience question is what is a great resource we can share with students about getting out to vote? I often think just vote.gov, which allows you to register, to see your state specific things. Do you have a favorite out of the resources that you pulled for the issue brief?
Peter McDonough: Well, I don't have a favorite Sarah for a particular reason, and it gets back to what I've said a few times now about understanding your locality and the people that are on the ground there. We noted, again, back on page six of our issue brief that there's different types of resources for different types of institutions. And yes, we also have ahead of that, some of the likely suspects, so to speak, that are terrific and list everything.
But we noted that for Hispanic-Serving Institutions, there's some types of resources. We noticed that for Historically Black Colleges and Universities, there's some types. For community colleges, there's some types.
And we also noted that because schools like to compete and students, particularly athletes like to compete, that there's things that are set up that are essentially competitions within conferences and the like about getting out to vote. And probably the best communicators for students are students.
And so some of these sites that may have been set up on a particular campus relating to a particular type of constituency could be the best to bring communities to look at first. With of course, those broader ones that are helpful and are well-known that we've noted in our issue brief there as well.
But how much time is an individual going to devote to figuring out what they need to figure out, and what is the best way for an institution to minimize the time, maximize the clarity, and give the most comfort about certainty that they know the rules of the road? I think the answer to that's going to depend.
Jon Fansmith: Yeah, that's a great point. And we are right up against time, Pete. I am going to give you the last word. If there is one thing campuses should be thinking about as they look at the next 29 days, what would that be?
Peter McDonough: Don't presume that the rules four years ago are the rules now. And remember that in addition to a presidential election, there's a whole lot of seats in Congress up and there's a whole lot of issues by referendum on ballots, and students care about issues.
Jon Fansmith: Great. Thank you Pete, and thank you all of you for joining us. As always, appreciate the great questions, appreciate the thoughtful interactions, appreciate your support, and appreciate everything you and your campuses are doing. We will see you again next month with at that point, maybe some election outcomes to discuss. So thanks again. See you all soon.
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