Penn Leads the Vote hosted a tabling event by the LOVE statue to celebrate National Voter Registration Day on Sept. 17.
The event encouraged students to register to vote, check their registration status, and get informed about the upcoming elections in November. PLTV offered free food, giveaways, and a sticker-making competition to incentivize students to participate.
PLTV, a nonpartisan, student-run organization, aims to foster a culture of civic engagement on Penn’s campus. College senior and PLTV research and analytics coordinator Julia Levine described the event on Tuesday as "education and a little bit of fun."
“We've heard a lot of people having trouble with registration, so we want to just make sure everyone is aware of when election deadlines are," she said.
Levine added that she has been passionate about voter registration since high school, and that joining PLTV when she arrived to Penn "felt like the right step forward."
College senior and PLTV director Alyssa Antonian said that her interest in political education began in her home state of Mississippi, where she saw a lack of civic engagement. She took up initiatives in high school to help increase voter turnout, and her commitment to continuing this work in college led to her involvement with PLTV in her first year.
Antonian explained that the goals of the tabling event included registering as many people as possible to vote.
“Other than registration, we are also just trying to kind of get the word out about the election, get people in the mindset — even though, being here, it's kind of hard to not be in the mindset,” Antonian said.
PLTV also organizes voting events seasonally to assist with registration for primary and midterm elections.
College first year Madeline Wuest, who attended the tabling event, said that this fall marks her first time voting.
“I’ve always been politically active, but this is the first time I feel like I could really make a change because I can vote, and I know it’s going to affect my future,” she said.
Antonian said that PLTV’s commitment to nonpartisanship is central to its mission, adding that — despite increasing political polarization — it remains a space focused on voting rather than endorsing candidates.
“People right now, more than ever, are really excited to be in a space that’s not so polarized and is more about engaging people around voting,” she said. “I think it's always refreshing for us to be nonpartisan.”
PLTV plans to continue its efforts leading up to Election Day. Antonian said that the organization will shift focus after the voter registration deadline on Oct. 21 to sharing candidate educational strategies, as well as making sure people know where to vote, what’s on the ballot, and what to expect on Election Day.
Wuest emphasized the significance of civic participation, especially for those just entering adulthood.
“Whether you consider yourself politically active or not, you do need to get involved because we all have a right as citizens to vote,” she said. “It is our duty.”
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