High Number of Young Voters Cast a Ballot in Tuesday's Election

Saturday, April 8th, 2023 -- 10:00 AM

(By Anya van Wagtendonk, Wisconsin Public Radio) An hour before the polls closed on Tuesday, Teddy Landis was standing outside a freshman dining hall on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, trying to encourage students who hadn’t voted yet to cast their ballots.

"That was incredibly difficult," Landis said. "Everyone coming out of the building had an 'I Voted' sticker." Wisconsin's election for an open state Supreme Court seat broke turnout records for a spring election.

The liberal candidate, Janet Protasiewicz, received more than a million votes, besting her conservative opponent, former Justice Dan Kelly, by 11 percentage points, according to preliminary results. In the past, races for Supreme Court might have gone unnoticed by college voters. Not this year.

"Based on the number of numbers we're seeing, we believe we were incredibly successful," said Landis, an organizer for Project 72 WI, a group that was founded in order to turn out young voters in the Supreme Court race. "It's unlike anything that's ever been seen in a spring election in terms of turnout on college campuses."

Landis' group was one of several around the state that focused on turning out young people for what would normally be a low-key election. Others included NextGen America, a national youth voting group, and Leaders Igniting Transformation, a Milwaukee-based group that has a presence on 11 college campuses across the state.

Project 72 WI organized 100 volunteers across 15 college campuses and knocked on 40,000 student doors, according to Landis. The group held events at bars and drag shows, handed out stickers and posted TikToks. Leaders Igniting Transformation handed out voter guides, knocked on 56,000 doors and made 250,000 phone calls. NextGen even had a presence on dating apps.

In a nonpartisan race, these groups focused on issues the high court might take up and how a shift in the ideological balance of the court could affect laws surrounding abortion, voting rights and gerrymandering.

Anecdotally, their efforts appear to have paid off. One viral video from election day shows a line of voters snaking down the hall at the UW-Eau Claire. Preliminary results from that campus reflect what Landis said is a pattern: turnout approaching levels typically reserved for November elections.

And unofficial results suggest that voters in college wards, precincts where most or all voters live on-campus, a proxy for measuring student turnout, largely cast their ballots for Protasiewicz.

These are preliminary numbers based on precincts where voters are all or mostly students, "because that's the best bellwether for how the general students vote is going," according to Landis.

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