Dinners for Democracy: A Peer-to-Peer Nonpartisan Voter Education Program

• In Event: Enhancing Student Civic Connections through Experiential and Active Learning

Abstract

We evaluate Dinners for Democracy, a peer-to-peer voter education program aimed at helping students connect the issues they care about to their vote. The students of Turn Up Turnout, a nonpartisan student organization at the University of Michigan, developed and hosted 101 Dinners covering 28 topics–from gun violence prevention to renewable energy–in the year leading up to the 2022 Midterm Election. We surveyed students who signed up for the dinners before, immediately after, and in the months following each Dinner to evaluate what they learned from the events. We also interview the students who researched, developed, and presented the various dinner topics to gauge what the took away from the experience. We find that Dinners for Democracy was an effective program for increasing students' knowledge about issue topics, helping students make connections between these topics and relevant down-ballot offices, and increasing students’ understanding of the mechanics of the voting process.

Authors

• Phoebe Henninger, University of Michigan

• Logan Woods, University of Michigan

• Edie Goldenberg, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor