With a potentially divisive 2024 U.S. presidential election approaching, ACUI has developed this one-stop resource center to help you prepare for and navigate the months ahead.

Online Education Opportunities

September 10,
1 p.m. Eastern
Webinar: Election Season Preparation
November 5,
1 p.m. Eastern
Ask an Expert:
Free Speech
Register Now
NOvember 19,
3 p.m. Eastern
Hot Topics Roundtable: Post-Election Climate
Register Now
Early 2025
Date/Time TBD
Webinar: Post-Inauguration Check-In
Coming Soon

Election Resources

ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge 

The ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge empowers colleges and universities to achieve excellence in nonpartisan student democratic engagement. 

Binghamton University: Student political groups unite for Summit on Student Political Engagement 

This article highlights Binghamton University in New York for organizing an event called the “great debate.” Its purpose was to show how opposing groups (College Republicans, College Democrats, and College Libertarians) can argue on various hot topics in a civil and organized way without disparaging the other or creating a hostile environment.

Constructive Dialogue Institute

The Constructive Dialogue Institute works with institutions across the education, for-profit, non-profit, and public sectors to help them communicate across differences and build inclusive cultures. Maintaining Campus Community During the 2024 Election: A Guide for Leaders, Faculty, and Staff is intended to fill that gap for newly appointed higher education professionals. By collating the experiences of subject matter experts and university educators in a range of roles—faculty; staff; offices of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI); civic engagement centers; and university presidents—this body of work aims to provide knowledge about what works to contain campus conflict and transform discourse. The CDI Resource Library  provides exercises, webinars, instructor guides, and perspectives that students and professionals can utilize when thinking about creating an environment open to election preparation. 

From September, the report “Navigating Campus Protests: University Leadership in the Era of Polarized Activism” offer five research-backed strategies for handling campus unrest, rooted in lessons learned from the protests of the 2023–2024 academic year. It provides detailed guidance for reviewing your policies, adjusted for your timeline and line-by-line guidance for talking with student activists about their demonstration.

Institute for Democracy & Higher Education  

Focus areas for the Institute for Democracy & Higher Education include educating for democracy, elections as teachable moments, talking politics, speech/inclusion/academic freedom.  .

U.S. Election Assistance Commission: Engaging College Communities in Elections 

College students and communities often face unique challenges regarding the voting process, but this also represents opportunities for innovative engagement. In the video series Engaging College Communities in Elections, Election Assistance Commission Commissioner Ben Hovland had three discussions with leaders representing election officials, student advocacy groups, and college administrators about their work in college communities to not only meet the requirement of the Higher Education Act that institutions of higher education make a good faith effort to distribute voter registration form, but to engage student communities more broadly in the democratic process.

Prepare for National Elections on Campus (United Educators)

Guidance to help you prepare for national elections. Your institution should prepare for national elections by meeting legal obligations to give students voter registration information and by safely facilitating and monitoring campus political activities, ensuring these activities don’t break the law.

ACE – Student Voting and College Political Campaign-Related Activities in 2024

This guide is designed to educate college and university administrators, faculty, and staff about how to support student voting and what political campaign-related activities are allowed on campus. ACE puts this guide out every couple of years. It provides multiple resources for institutions.

Ask Every Student 

Ask Every Student is a national joint initiative that facilitates collaboration between campus leaders and nonprofit partners to help campuses ask every student to participate in the democratic process and achieve full student voter registration. The Ask Every Student Toolkit is a comprehensive and growing resource of strategies, tools, and tactics that are designed to assist campus leaders in implementing full student voter registration strategies on their campuses.

Campus Vote Project & NASPAs Voter Friendly Campus 

The Voter Friendly Campus designation program was started through a partnership between Fair Elections Center’s Campus Vote Project and NASPA’s NASPA LEAD Initiative in 2016. This partnership was formed as a tool to support higher education institutions fulfilling the requirements of the Higher Education Act of 1965, which necessitates that institutions distribute voter registration forms to their students. 

National Study of Learning, Voting & Engagement

The National Study of Learning, Voting & Engagement offers colleges and universities an opportunity to learn their student registration and voting rates and, for interested campuses, a closer examination of their campus climate for political learning and engagement and correlations between specific student learning experiences and voting. 

National Voter Education Week (Oct 7–11, 2024) 

National Voter Education Week is an open-source, nonpartisan voter education campaign. During this week of interactive education, voters have the opportunity to find their polling location, understand their ballot, make a plan to vote, and inspire others to get involved. Together, we can help voters overcome common barriers to become confident voters and ambassadors of voting in their own communities for every election. 

Students Learn Students Vote Coalition (SLSV) 

Students Learn Students Vote Coalition provides existing nonpartisan programs and resources for increasing student voter participation. Resources include: SLSV Starter Packs, SLSV Resource Library, and SLSV Decode the Vote.

U.S. Department of Education Toolkit for the Promotion of Voter Participation For Students 

The goal of this toolkit is to help schools support all students’ civic engagement; you will find examples that show some of the ways in which schools are currently supporting nonpartisan voter registration activities to expand youth voter participation. 

Election Imperatives: Ten Recommendations to Increase College Student Voting and Improve Political Learning and Engagement in Democracy

From the Institute of Democracy & Higher Education, find recommendations on increasing student voting.

Preparing For a Potentially Tumultuous Fall on Campus: A Conversation with a Former President, General Counsel and Campus Police Chief Who Have Been There (ACE)

Get advice from those who have dealt with campus activism.

Campus Speech: A Discussion of Policies, Protests, and Encampments

This webinar features recommendations on how colleges and universities should handle current issues involving speech on their campuses. Michael E. Baughman, partner at Troutman Pepper, discusses speech policies, protests and encampments, and Title VI guidance from the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.

10 Steps to Mitigating Possible Election-Related Unrest on Campus

Discover how you can mitigate unrest on campus.

NAIS Toolkit: Election Season, Politics on Campus, and Civil Discourse

How do you nurture open and respectful dialogue in your school during election season and beyond? In these highly polarized times, can you avoid a firestorm? How can you approach politics on campus and stay on the right side of the law as a nonprofit organization? These resources will help you understand challenges and opportunities for your school during election season, frame conversations in your communities, nurture civil discourse and healthy school cultures, address political topics in your classrooms, and manage contentious situations to avoid crises.