Southfield resident leads campaign to increase student voters

SOUTHFIELD — Eastern Michigan University student and Southfield-raised Naomi Barbour is making waves with her campaign to increase student participation in Michigan politics.

Working with a team tasked with presenting election dates for the Michigan Legislature’s consideration, Barbour became involved with this campaign through her involvement with the Collegiate Student Advisory Task Force.

Gov. Gretchen Whitmer recently signed State Senate Bill 13, moving Michigan’s presidential primary from March 10, 2024, to Feb. 27, 2024. This decision was made after President Joe Biden suggested that Michigan become one of the early primary states.

However, this calendar shift raises concern for young voters, particularly college students, as many would be on spring break during this voting period.

“This was a project that came once we realized that the presidential primary data was going to be moved in Michigan, and the task force … along with the campus vote project, we had worked together with other college students, and we aim to sync legislative intervention with moving the date,” Barbour said. “We were unsuccessful in advocating for change because the bill had already passed the Senate by the time the letter reached the Legislature.”

Though Barbour and her team’s campaign was unsuccessful, she remains persistent.

“We pivoted to more of a policy approach in the Legislature, rather than focusing on the change for the presidential primary.”

In addition to pursuing a political science major with a concentration in public law and judicial politics and a minor in public and nonprofit administration, Barbour keeps busy with her involvement with the Collegiate Student Advisory Task Force, the Campus Vote Project, One Campaign in Michigan, the Georgia Coalition for the Peoples’ Agenda, and NextGen America. She states that her end goal is to use her degree to become an employment anti-discrimination attorney or civil rights lawyer.

Barbour stated that despite the defeat, she stays motivated because, “It’s clear that Michigan students are voting. Michigan had the highest increase in young voters (18-24 years old) in 2022 when compared to 2018.”

In fact, Barbour’s own college campus, EMU, was recently named a “Voter Friendly Campus” by Fair Elections Center’s Campus Vote Project and Student Affairs Administrators in Higher Education, joining 258 campuses across 38 states in this ranking.

According to an EMU press release, the university received this designation after they presented a written plan “for how it planned to register, educate, and turn out student voters in 2022, how the University facilitated voter engagement efforts on campus, and a final analysis of the efforts.”

Landon Myers, the Michigan coordinator for the Campus Vote Project, said that “historically, young voters have been ignored because it was just assumed they didn’t vote at high rates. But I think young people really do care about a lot of issues. We have to make sure the government is representing the voices of the people so that the government is actually representative of the population and not just a select few.”

Myers explained that CVP is involved with around 30 Michigan campuses and 280 nationally across 41 states.   

Through her participation in these various efforts to increase voter engagement across college campuses, Barbour noted issues such as confusion surrounding where students should go to vote, which address they should list, whether they can use their out-of-state ID, lack of satellite offices, and inadequate voting resources.

Barbour believes that there shouldn’t be so many barriers for college students to vote and continues to advocate for early on-campus voting, voter registration at these community early voting sites and the opportunity for out-of-state students to register to vote online.

“Naomi has done amazing work, and I’m really proud to work in this space alongside her, and I really look forward to seeing what she’ll do in the future,” stated Myer, who met Barbour through her involvement with CSATF.