St. Olaf College won the 2022 Minnesota Democracy Cup in the private colleges category with a record voter turnout of 67.6 percent — the highest overall in the entire competition. The University of Minnesota Twin Cities was a close second with 52 percent, which won the four-year public state university category. This award marks St. Olaf’s sixth award for the 2022 midterm election season, which includes awards from the Minnesota Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (MIAC) and the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge.
The Minnesota Democracy Cup was founded in 2018 by the Minnesota Secretary of State’s office in conjunction with LeadMN, Students United, MN Student Association, Minnesota Association of Private College Students, and the ALL IN Campus Democracy Challenge. It aims to promote voter engagement and turnout amongst college students. Broken into four categories — two-year public university, four-year public university, four-year public state university, and four-year private university — voter registration is calculated by the largest ongoing student voter engagement study since 2012, the National Student for Learning, Voting, and Engagement (NSLVE) at Tufts University. Winners from each category are selected based on the highest percentages.
According to a press release by the Office of the Minnesota Secretary of State Steve Simon, all four winners of the 2022 Minnesota Democracy Cup surpassed the national collegiate voter turnout average of 30.6 percent.
“In Minnesota, we are championship voters,” Simon said at an event at Flaten Art Museum on Oct. 23, where he presented St. Olaf with the award. “We vote consistently in large numbers almost regardless of zip code, life experience, political persuasion, et cetera. We do that. There are a lot of reasons for that, and one of those reasons, at least in my opinion, is we’ve had good laws over the years and decades in Minnesota that really make it more likely to have high voter turnout.”
This statement rings true for St. Olaf, in part thanks to the work done by the Institute of Freedom and Community (IFC), the Election Ambassadors and Coordinators program, and Academic and Civic Engagement (ACE) courses.
“I think Oles are very civically engaged, and so most of the time they are happy to see us wherever we are,” Election Coordinator Roxi Wessel ’26 said in a video interview with The Olaf Messenger. “They are very eager to take the opportunity to use their voices, and we’re just around to help them do that in whatever way we see fit.”
In preparation for the 2024 U.S. presidential election, the IFC, community members involved in ACE courses, and Election Ambassadors and Coordinators have been preparing the student body in numerous ways to vote. An art exhibit titled “Practicing Democracy,” has opened up in the Flaten Art Museum. Election Ambassadors have gone door-knocking in residence halls and have left sidewalk chalk messages across campus encouraging students to register and pledge to vote. Election Coordinators have tabled throughout the past two months informing students on voting.
“This campus has really been a leader, not just in voting but in civic engagement,” Simon continued at the event. “Even in a high turnout state, you have distinguished yourselves.”
In attendance at the Democracy Cup event were Norwegian press, accompanied by Honorary Consul of Norway Heidi Olufsen. Their visit was a part of a two-to-three-week tour covering the U.S. presidential election for their Norwegian audience. Alongside visiting key swing states such as Michigan and Georgia, Olufsen and the press are visiting places such as St. Olaf with regional connections to Norway.
With the highest voter turnout in both the 2020 U.S. presidential election (87.6 percent) and the 2022 midterm election, there is a large amount of pressure on the St. Olaf campus community to continue its trend of high voter turnout once again.
