PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — Efforts are underway to improve Philadelphia’s voter turnout, including a new program at Community College of Philadelphia, but more work is needed. That was the consensus of participants in a roundtable discussion on the issue at City Hall on Wednesday.
Just 16% of Philly voters turned out last spring and the 65% turnout in last year’s presidential election was down from 2020.
College students have been seen as a key demographic for boosting voter turnout. Committee of Seventy president Lauren Cristella said CCP has been working on a plan to get more of its students registered.
“We’ll be the first in the country to integrate the state’s voter registration system into the class registration system,” she said.
Cristella said all of the same information used to register for class will be used to register to vote, making for a streamlined process. She expects the new system to be in place this fall — in time for November’s judicial elections. CCP is the first school to take part in this system, but Cristella hopes it won’t be the last.
“Once they crack this code at CCP, we’re hoping we can roll this out to other universities too and have that in place for 2026,” she said, “so that would be huge.”
Other ideas to come out of the roundtable included more voter education — about candidates, about why voting matters and about the voting process itself so newly registered voters feel comfortable going to the polls. Kadida Kenner, CEO of the New Pennsylvania Project, said registering new voters was not enough.
“The number one reason why the most recently registered to vote don’t come out is because they don’t know how to do it,” she said, “and you don’t want to look stupid. No one wants to look stupid when they go into a polling location and ask lots of questions.”
Outreach is important, she said, but the quality of it also matters. “It’s a huge difference when we have a conversation at their front door versus not having a conversation and just leaving behind a door hanger.”