From Sept. 14 to Sept. 18, VoteDeis and the Abraham Feinberg Educational Network for Active Civic Transformation hosted Civic Engagement Week — a series of events aiming to increase nonpartisan learning and engagement across Brandeis ahead of the upcoming midterm elections. The week featured five events, followed by an interactive session led by Nova Brent ’28 and Luke Farberman ’27 at the East Coast Votes Summit hosted by the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

On Monday, Sept. 14, Maine Secretary of State Shenna Bellows joined live on Zoom for a conversation called, “How do election officials prepare for the unexpected?” The next day, VoteDeis and ENACT hosted National Voter Registration Day with two baby goats. 

Dozens of students stopped by to take pictures with the baby goats, while VoteDeis members helped students check their voter registration and request ballots. A baby goat first visited campus as part of a VoteDeis voter engagement event in fall 2024 and quickly became one of the organization’s signature initiatives.

“So we were like, why not put animals and voting together? So that’s exactly what we did … And so from there, this kind of became our brand at Brandeis. And then, this year, we ran the Vote Goat again. This time, with two goats — double the goats, double the votes,” Farberman, senior representative of VoteDeis, said during the Harvard workshop on Sept. 19.

On Wednesday, Sept. 16, VoteDeis and ENACT, in collaboration with the Center for Spiritual Life, Jewelry Making Club, Center for Health & Wellness, Fashion Society and Yarn Craft Club, held a “Crafting Democracy” night. “I think [the event] brought together people who wouldn’t necessarily come to an event like this,” Brent said. “They came for the crafting, but then they also got this element of civic engagement that they might not normally be attracted to.”

The following day, a keynote talk with Jonathan Becker, acting president of Bard College and Yael Bromberg, constitutional rights litigator and election law professor, took place on campus. The discussion focused on youth voting rights and challenges surrounding voting access on college campuses.

The last event at Brandeis as part of Civic Engagement Week, was the Boston Student Voting Conference on Sept. 18. The event brought together student voting coalitions throughout the Boston area, including Northeastern University and Suffolk University. “We are all working on kind of the same general project of trying to keep people engaged and knowledgeable about how they can vote, what they are going to be voting on, from a completely nonpartisan perspective. So that’s the same project all across the Boston area, but we are kind of all in our little lone bubbles, and so the kind of idea is: how do we stay in contact?” Farberman shared.

He pointed to an exchange with a Northeastern student as an example. “One of the people I was talking to from Northeastern was like, ‘Well, so you guys obviously have a monthly newsletter.’ I was like, ‘Wait, we don’t have a monthly newsletter,’” Farberman said.

On Saturday, Sept. 19, Brent and Farberman led an Idea Sharing Workshop at Harvard Kennedy School, where students from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Bridgewater State University, Princeton University and other colleges discussed strategies for increasing campus voter engagement. During the session, Brent and Farberman presented Brandeis initiatives including Vote Goat, weekly voter-registration tables and social media engagement. “I would actually say that your Vote Goat idea is probably one of the best things I have heard in the area,” a Princeton student shared at the Harvard workshop.

VoteDeis began as a campus coalition of students, staff, and faculty through ENACT. David Weinstein, assistant director of ENACT, co-founded VoteDeis. “I co-founded VoteDeis with the goal of coordinating and supporting and expanding on work already being done at Brandeis by faculty, staff and students to support voter registration and voter participation,” Weinstein said.

He said that the work has been primarily driven by students. After the 2024 elections, student members began the process of turning the coalition into an officially chartered student club, establishing executive board positions and adding a structure for welcoming new members.

VoteDeis’ work extends beyond voter registration ahead of federal elections. Brent said the organization has worked to expand its initiatives during election “off years,” including a New York City mayoral debate watch party and other events focused on local elections. “Just because there isn’t a federal election happening doesn’t mean that local politics disappear,” she shared. VoteDeis has also hosted an event combining thrifting, coffee and voter registration that raised $500 for Common Cause Massachusetts.

Central to VoteDeis’ work is its nonpartisan approach to voter engagement. “They’re committed to doing this nonpartisan work that is about ensuring that anybody, no matter what their political point of view is, no matter who they may be planning to vote for, has that opportunity,” Weinstein said.

—Editor’s Note: News Editors Ashhwika Soni and Chava Thiell serve on the VoteDeis Executive Board and did not contribute to or edit this article.