In the middle of Iowa’s sweltering August heat wave, volunteers with Johnson County Democrats set up a non-partisan voter registration tent outside of downtown Iowa City’s Yotopia, one of many local get-out-the-vote efforts prefacing the upcoming presidential election.

Targeting younger voters and college students needing to re-register after an address change, the volunteers guided people through the process of ensuring their vote could be cast in the upcoming presidential election.

Talia Lavorato, a first-year student at the University of Iowa, registered to vote for the first time at the tent. She said she took the time to register in the oppressive heat because she believes young voices need to be heard.

“People from different backgrounds are able to vote on the same type of topics,” she said. “There could be some topics that aren’t really talked about enough, and so if more people were to vote on those topics [they would] get seen more.”

Lavorato was one of hundreds of young people who registered to vote in Johnson County through local get-out-the-vote efforts.

Despite grassroots efforts within the county and around the state, Iowa voter registration totals are still below the levels seen during the 2022 midterm elections. However, this year’s numbers are currently on the rise.

Local organizations including Johnson County Democrats and Hawk the Vote are driving voter registration in the lead-up to the 2024 presidential election.

After a sweeping state elections law moved more than a half million voters’ registrations from active to inactive, the number of voters with active registration status remains below 2022 election levels.

The law requires registered voter’s status to change from active to inactive after failing to vote in any general election. Under the law, more than a quarter of Iowa’s 2.2 million registered voters were moved to an inactive status.

Before the law, a voter’s registration status did not change unless the voters failed to cast a ballot in two consecutive general elections.

After a voter roll update in April 2023, there were 1,328,793 active registered voters in Iowa. Numbers released at the beginning of August totaled 1,558,076 active registered voters — an increase of 229,283 voters with active registration status.

Voter registration numbers increase

The new law kicked more than 30,000 voters in Johnson County to inactive status after it went into effect. The numbers have bounced back to more than 76,000 active voters in the most recent report released in early August, compared to a little more than 68,000 following the law’s enactment.

Iowans with an inactive voter status are still able to vote, as moving a registration status from active to inactive does not impact the ability to vote. However, it does move the voter’s registration closer to being canceled.

Mack Shelley, a political science professor at Iowa State University, said excitement and trepidation about the coming Nov. 5 election have helped increase voter registration.

Shelley said voter registration typically rises during presidential election years, and historically, younger people are less likely to cast a ballot because voting is a habitual process.

“There are all these things that are societal pressures, sort of time of life things. Income considerations and things like that can overwhelm younger people who haven’t been through the cycle yet,” Shelley said. “Once you’ve been through the cycle, you get registered, you vote — it’s a whole lot easier to sort of like, lather, rinse, repeat, and then just keep going through it.”

Shelley described voting as a cyclical process, and after people begin the voting process, they are very likely to continue — it is just a matter of taking the step to register to vote.

“You have to be registered to be able to play the game of actually voting,” Shelley said.

Voter registration numbers can also increase for a combination of factors, including election type, candidates on the ballot, key issues, and boosts from headlines or events that generate national interest, Johnson County Auditor Erin Shane said in an email to The Daily Iowan.

Registered voters made inactive through the list maintenance process can return to active status by requesting an absentee ballot, voting in an election, submitting a new registration, or updating their voter registration, Shane said.

Local organizations look to boost voter registration

Registering to vote is a key part of the voting process, and voting is better for democracy, said Eric Johnson of Iowa City, who is one of the dozens of volunteers with the Johnson County Democrats holding voter registration drives on the pedestrian mall and T. Anne Cleary Walkway in Iowa City.

“I think the more people that have secure access to voting, the better it is,” Johnson said. “Because it’s people taking a hand in deciding their political fate, deciding the outcomes of the government that affects their lives.”

Johnson County Democrats and Hawk the Vote are two of many organizations across Iowa looking to drive voter registration to make it easier for Iowans to vote at the polls in November.

Dan Feltes, the First Vice Chair of Johnson County Democrats, said the organization has put up these tents in high-traffic areas to help get voters, especially the number of young voters concentrated on the UI campus who might be registering for the first time, to register to make “election day go smoother.”

“Everybody has a right to have their voice heard, and voting is the way to do it,” Feltes said. “It’s the way to have your voice heard and encourage everybody who isn’t registered to go ahead and get registered. Don’t wait to register. Get it done.”

Hawk the Vote battles voter apathy

Hawk the Vote Executive Director Jaden Bartlett said the group has been working with large campus and Greek life organizations to drive voter registration at their events this semester.

However, Bartlett said overcoming voter apathy has been the group’s biggest hurdle in driving young people to register and, in turn, to the polls.

“It’s really easy to relegate that to just being a presidential thing,” Bartlett said. “Maybe if you don’t see a candidate that represents the values or behaviors or beliefs that you’d like to see at the presidential level. That’s fine, but there are all these down-ballot candidates who actually can make almost a more noticeable difference in how things run in your community.”

RELATED: Vice President Kamala Harris reenergizes Democrats after President Joe Biden’s exit

Karson Johnson, a first-year student at the UI, first registered to vote when he turned 18 and recently re-registered after moving to Iowa City. Johnson said young people are turned away from politics because of the increasing age of politicians.

Former President Donald Trump rings in at 78 years old, and President Joe Biden is 81 years old. Vice President Kamala Harris is 59 years old, a stark difference she has utilized as a campaign tactic to target younger voters.

“There’s certain people out there — which I kind of see the point — they don’t like seeing 70-year-olds in office. They don’t like seeing 70-year-old white guys,” Johnson said. “They don’t like that impression that’s always given off of politicians, so that’s why I think sometimes it pushes people to stay at home or to not get involved.”

Hawk the Vote introduces new course

Hawk the Vote was founded in 2018 by Jocelyn Roof, a political science student at the UI, to drive the civic engagement of the university’s more than 20,000 students. Now, six years later, the group is taking a step into uncharted territory — hosting a one-credit-hour course focused on engaging voters in a new way.

Hawk the Vote’s main goal for the past six years of its existence has focused on grassroots efforts to drive voter registration at the UI. A mixture of educational events, voter registration drives, and social media posts looking to drive civic engagement, and voter registration has become the group’s mainstay.

However, this year’s group wants to take a new approach to educating young voters with a one-of-its-kind course titled “Special Topics in Politics: History and Politics of Voter Registration and Civic Engagement.”

The course will host a series of local government officials, university officials, state lawmakers, and even a congressional candidate to show students how voting plays a role in civic engagement, Noah LeFevre, the education director for the group, said.

The course requires students in the class to work with Hawk the Vote and participate in several events outside of class time for credit.

LeFevre said the reason the group decided to offer a course was to build civically engaged leaders.

“But this year, we’re looking to not only have people show up for events and activities and register people,” LeFevre said. “We want to create leaders as well as people who are engaged with their local political systems.”

Bartlett said the group decided that this year, being a presidential election year, was the perfect year to start the course — when the public’s attention is already drawn to politics.

“It seemed like a very salient time to implement the idea,” Bartlett said.

Bartlett said the group decided a course would be the best way to advance their civic engagement goals.

“We really want to emphasize that there is more to participating in democracy than just voting,” Bartlett said. “That’s certainly a very important part — but there is a lot more to it than that.”

The course will not only focus on voting but also on interacting with elected officials and engaging in politics more than going to the ballot box. This includes talking with local and state officials about issues that directly affect them.

LeFevre said he wants to make sure that students aren’t just engaged for presidential or congressional races but also local races that can make an impact on daily life.

“I just hope that people are more aware of elections,” LeFevre said.  “I want people to be out there and be able to understand just the overall American political system but also understand the importance of democracy and voting.”

Editor’s note: A former version of this article incorrectly described Noah LeFevre as the education coordinator for Hawk the Vote. The DI regrets this error.