(NNPA) An estimated 41 million Gen Z voters can vote in the general election on November 5. With college students comprising a critical voting bloc for the 2024 General Election, Hampton journalism students have produced an Absentee Voting Guide, available at Absentee Voter Guide. The Absentee Voter Guide features an interactive map detailing how voters can mail their ballots across all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Readers can learn about the deadlines to request and return absentee ballots and the qualifications for voting by mail. “Researching, critical reading, and wading through confusing information is an important part of a journalist’s job,” said Professor Devika Koppikar, who spearheaded the project. “By reading through state election board websites, students learned how voting can be both easy or challenging, depending upon the state.”

Hampton Journalism students learned that in their assigned state, unhoused or displaced people have several voting options, while other states present confusing websites with broken links, creating voting barriers. Those voting barriers discourage citizens from participating in democracy, and this guide will help encourage them to participate in the election process.

To complete the guide, 52 students in the sophomore-level course “Reporting and Writing Across Platforms” were each assigned a state. Students combed through each state’s election website and called to clarify any discrepancies about absentee voting. Then, the students sent their drafts to the editing team from the senior-level “Content Editing” course, who corrected their work.

Finally, four journalism students from the university’s Honors College designed the booklet and interactive map to fulfil a project requirement. “Journalism and democracy are tightly intertwined. For that reason, it’s important to get students involved in learning to research, report, and write about the basics of our election system,” said Professor Koppikar, who previously worked as a press secretary to two Members of the U.S. Congress.

“We are very proud of the excellent work Professor Koppikar and her students have done to produce such a first-rate Absentee Voters Guide,” said Julia A. Wilson, dean of the Scripps Howard School of Journalism and Communications. “We hope the Guide will serve as a useful tool and encourage everyone to vote.”