A Campus Voting Hub opens at the UMMA

A campus voting hub opened at the University of Michigan Museum of Art on Tuesday for students and Ann Arbor residents. The hub provides voters with a variety of nonpartisan voting resources such as pamphlets and posters while also hosting a satellite office from the Ann Arbor City Clerk for registration and voting. The UMMA voting hub will be joined by another hub opening at the Duderstadt Center Gallery on Oct. 21. Both sites will remain open through Nov. 5, operating from noon to 6 p.m.

Jack Beaudry, Ann Arbor City Clerk, explained in an interview with The Michigan Daily that the campus voting hubs were first established during the 2020 election year due to a change in Michigan law.

“After Michigan passed Proposition 18-3, we can now have same-day voter registration, while we used to have a hard 30-day stop,” Beaudry said. “We can also now have 15-day mail-in voter registration. So when that proposition passed, because of having the campus community in Ann Arbor, we realized we’re going to need to be on campus where students can easily access us, as that’s the majority of our new registrations in a national election.”

Both the Duderstadt and UMMA voting hubs were designed by the Creative Campus Voting Project, a group that is a part of the UMICH Votes Coalition, an organization that aims to support student voters. The Creative Campus Voting Project specifically aims to use art and design in creating these voting hubs.

Hannah Smotrich, Art & Design associate professor and co-founder of the Creative Campus Voting Project, said in an interview with The Daily that the project’s focus on design includes more than just visual arts.

“In many ways, thinking about it through a design lens may make it a little bit more evident how creative thinking is involved,” Smotrich said. “It might be something that is visible like the large graphics on the wall, but there’s also very carefully crafted language, which is also art and design thinking.”

Beaudry said he believes the design of the voting hub, created by the Creative Campus Voting Project, has left many voters feeling more positive about voting.  

“The design is meant to make you feel at ease,” Beaudry said. “It’s simple messages instead of a more traditional bureaucratic feeling experience. In fact I have had other voters say, ‘Why don’t all polling places look like that?’”

Stephanie Rowden, Art & Design associate professor and co-founder of the Creative Campus Voting Project, said in an interview with The Daily that the feeling of being at ease while voting is crucial, especially for first-time voters.

“This is, in many ways, an unexpected way to encounter an early voting experience,” Rowden said. “Our hope is that what people take away from this experience is feeling that it was very welcoming, clear, smooth and anchored in their lives right in Central Campus. We hope they (leave) feeling that it wasn’t as intimidating as they thought it would be. They won’t remember the particulars but they don’t need to. Instead, they need to take away this positive feeling as it will be the beginning to a much longer relationship with being a voter.”

One aspect of the UMMA and Duderstadt hubs that helps contribute to this positive atmosphere are the UMICH Votes Fellows, a group of U-M students specifically trained to assist voters at the voting hubs, Smotrich explained.

“They’re trained on some things they need to know and convey about voting but they’re equally trained on, how do you welcome someone into the space?” Smotrich said. “How do you bring down their anxiety about not knowing what they’re doing?”

LSA sophomore Allison Tate, a UMICH Votes Fellow, said she has found the fellowship experience incredibly rewarding.  

“I am so grateful to be a part of this and to know that I am making a positive impact on people’s voting experiences,” Tate said. 

Tate explained that the hubs also provide a variety of resources for visitors, including small pamphlets covering a variety of important topics related to voting and registration, surveys, buttons and stickers. The UMMA Campus Voting Hub also has a large “know your ballot” graphic that shows voters what a ballot looks like and answers common questions. The hub also features a button selfie wall and a map where voters can place a pin to indicate where they will be voting.

Lindsay Farb, U-M alum and Campus Voting Hub site manager, said in an interview with The Daily that she encourages voters to vote early at either of the campus hubs during the state’s early voting period in order to avoid the long lines of Election Day. 

“What’s exciting about this election cycle is that Michigan is now able to do nine days of early voting, which is Oct. 26 through Nov. 3,” Farb said. “We are going to be open from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. those days, including the weekends. People are able to come in here and get a ballot just like you do on Election Day. It is really beneficial so that you don’t have to wait in the long line on Election Day, which will help people feel more comfortable voting.”

Daily Staff Reporter Alyssa Tisch can be reached at tischaa@umich.edu.

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