When students arrived to The Future is Voting Tour, they weren’t greeted by the usual beer-soaked bar counters or merch tables with posters, records, and t-shirts. Instead, fellow students and members of community organizations welcomed them with clipboards and pens in hand, inviting them to register to vote. This is the landscape when performers partner with HeadCount, a non-partisan voter registration organization.
Reaching Voters on College Campuses
The Future is Voting Tour includes six stops, all at universities in swing states, including the University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee campus. The event was initially scheduled to be a performance for a student-only crowd, featuring Jim James of My Morning Jacket, Christopher Porterfield of Field Report and solo artist Linqua Franqa. The afternoon before the event, the show was opened to the public and took place in the Helene Zelazo Center for the Performing Arts.
A lot of times student voices aren’t heard because they don’t show up.
Danny Hoeft
“We’ve always wanted to go to college campuses and mix the idea of a town hall meeting with musical performances,” said Andy Bernstein, founder of HeadCount. The organization chose cities in swing states, including: Austin, Texas, San Marcos, Texas, Athens, Georgia, Indianaola, Indiana, Urbana, Illinois. Milwaukee was the third stop.
HeadCount is a nationwide organization with local street teams that volunteer to attend events on the organization’s behalf. HeadCount founder Andy Bernstein was in Milwaukee to lead The Future is Voting.
“We make sure that our organization is completely non-partisan and work very hard to make sure that our messaging is completely non-partisan and that we’re welcoming,” he said.
I thought my vote didn’t matter and I didn’t care – it’s one of my biggest regrets.
Jim James
For Jim James, being engaged in the political process and voting is a personal matter. “It’s important for people to realize that the first time you can vote – that is a sacred thing and you shouldn’t throw that away. I wish somebody would have told me that,” said James. “I thought my vote didn’t matter and I didn’t care – it’s one of my biggest regrets.”
Linqua Franqa is the stage name of Mariah Parker, who has the distinction of being both a musician and an elected official. In her dayjob, she is the District 2 Commissioner elected in Athens, Georgia. Parker made waves when she was sworn in to her post and chose to place her hand on The Autobiography of Malcolm X, instead of a customary Bible.
Student Organizations at the Tour
Leaders Igniting Transformation (LIT) was another group onsite at The Future is Voting event. LIT was founded in Jan., 2018 as a youth organization based in Milwaukee. LIT teaches young people how to become community leaders and to register voters. “We believe the future is young, black, brown and lit,” said Sydney Lee, a member of the group and a junior at UWM.
The Political Science National Honor Society’s Milwaukee chapter, Epsilon XI, co-sponsored the event. “I think voting is really important, especially for students,” said Danny Hoeft, UWM’s student president of Epsilon XI. “No matter what side you’re on you have a stake in what’s going on and a lot of times student voices aren’t heard because they don’t show up,” he said.
The Origin of HeadCount
HeadCount was started in 2004 by founder and Executive Director Andy Bernstein, “I was working as a reporter at the time, and I was very upset about the things I was reading in the news and I thought, ‘What can I do?’” he said. “I figured if I could get people to vote, who go to the same concerts I go to, maybe that’s something I could accomplish.”
“I thought of the idea to set up voter registration booths at concerts, wrote out a whole long plan and sent it to a friend in Disco Biscuits. He said, ‘I’m in,’ and that’s how we got it started,” he said.
We register voters at more than 100 concerts a week all over the country.
Andy Bernstein
According to its website, HeadCount has registered more than 500,000 voters and has more than 20,000 volunteers. “Right now we register voters at more than 100 concerts a week all over the country,” said Bernstein. “We try to go to concerts that are popular among young people and non-registered voters and get them signed up to vote.”
“It’s like a chain reaction,” said Jim James. “You have people walk out of here and they remind someone to vote and then they remind someone else to vote and they say, ‘I’ve got a mini-van and I can drive people to the polls.’”
“All these seem like they’re small things – but they’re not.”