Illinois State University: Mobilizing Voters Beyond the Federal Election Cycle

Apr 15

While many organizations focus on presidential elections, Illinois State University (ISU) understands that every year is an election year, and has successfully leveraged TurboVote to engage students and community members in local elections. Based in two counties with high-profile local elections in spring 2025, ISU integrated TurboVote into its approach to helping students and their greater surrounding community to vote in these elections. They have several tips to share for other TurboVote partners that may be seeking new ways to motivate their audience to cast their ballots in odd-year election cycles.

Building on 2024 Election Momentum

Paige Buschman, Associate Director at the Center for Civic Engagement at ISU, began using TurboVote as part of their work for fall 2024 voter engagement. Having become more familiar with its capabilities for that cycle, and seeing their audience size increase significantly by using TurboVote since becoming a partner, they decided they would actively share the tool to help ISU’s audience prepare for McClean County and Bloomington City elections happening in their area on April 1, 2025.

*Students at Illinois State generated awareness for local elections through in-person events. (Photo/Illinois State)*

Strategic Events for Maximum Impact

To drive awareness of the upcoming McLean County and Bloomington City elections, ISU organized several strategic events featuring TurboVote as a central resource:

Community Information Session at the Bloomington Public Library, connecting students with local residents
Mayoral Candidate Forum and Debate highlighting issues affecting both campus and community
Campus Community Dialogue exploring the impact of local government on student life

At each event, attendees received guidance on using TurboVote to register, check their status, and set up election reminders – creating a seamless pathway to participation.

Optimizing Resources Through Automation

In addition to voter registration assistance, a key reason ISU uses TurboVote is because of the notifications that are sent to those who sign up through their site.

“The notifications that come with TurboVote are an essential way for our office to capacity build,” Buschman notes. With their small team, it would be difficult to do this kind of communications work otherwise. “The tool essentially allows us to not have to manually try to track and update students to remind them about upcoming elections and completing their voter registration.” This automation is particularly valuable when managing complex information about local elections, where voting procedures and deadlines can vary significantly for in-state and out-of-state students.

*ISU students led the in-person civic engagement efforts. (Photo/Illinois State)*

Integration Across Digital Platforms

ISU maximized TurboVote's effectiveness by embedding it across multiple touchpoints:

University Voting Hub (Redbird Voter Guide) featuring comprehensive election information
Social media campaigns directing followers to these resources
Mass emails to students and the greater community
Presentations included a TurboVote QR code that drives students directly to the tool
Tabling events allowed them to pass out TurboVote flyers directly to students
“VOTE” stickers for laptops and water bottles featured a QR Code to TurboVote

By creating these multiple entry points, ISU ensured that students encounter voting information through various channels, increasing the likelihood of engagement.

Looking Ahead: Building Sustainable Civic Habits

As ISU prepared for the April 2025 elections, their approach demonstrates how educational institutions can foster long-term civic engagement habits by emphasizing the importance of participating in every election, not just presidential races.