A recent graduate of Illinois State University is a recipient of Southern Illinois University (SIU) Carbondale’s Paul Simon Democracy Award. After graduating in May, Bloomington native Ben Muncy will return to campus in the fall to complete a voter registration drive for students.
The award given by SIU Carbondale’s Public Policy Institute awards a $5,000 prize to four students at Illinois colleges and universities who propose projects aimed at encouraging democracy in their local communities. Muncy submitted his proposal with a video, demonstrating the need and argument for a voter registration drive at ISU.
For Muncy, this is not his first rodeo with civic engagement.
Even before his time as a political science major at ISU, he spent four years as a deputy clerk in the McLean County Clerk’s Office in the elections department, as well as volunteering on local campaigns. However, a project like this only came to mind after discussions with other students before the consolidated election and their confusion about where to vote.
“It turned into a conversation of, ‘I really think you should be voting where you live’ and most students live in town for nine months out of the year and so that’s kind of how it started,” Muncy said. “This would be a good project is getting more students registered locally to vote in town.”
While a portion of students go home for the summer, there are students who remain in Bloomington-Normal the rest of the year. Regardless of how long they're in the area, Muncy’s project focuses on registering students so they can exercise their voice in the community where they contribute to the local economy and are affected by decisions made by local elected officials.
Muncy identified young people, ages 18-24, as continually one of the smallest voting blocs. Muncy also said while some political parties makes efforts to register potential voters for their specific candidates and issues, his registration drive exists outside party lines.
“It’s less about trying to get voters for one party or the others and more about getting the most consistently, least active voting bloc more active and engaged politically,” he said. “If I can come at this non-partisan and just trying to get this age group more engaged, I don’t care who they’re engaged for, but as long as they’re engaged, that’s important to me.”
Muncy said the best way to refer students to resources and explain to them why voting important is to meet them where they are and get in front of them — on a place like the quad.
“The most effective way of doing that is tabling and talking to people is being out there,” he said. “I knew right away that was an element of it that I needed to be on the quad … and engaging them.”
Center for Civic Engagement
Muncy said he knew from the beginning that he wanted to work with the Center for Civic Engagement [CCE] of ISU, an organization all too familiar with a voter registration drive. He just had to get the funding and planning completed first, knowing the center's resources and previous experience would be invaluable to having a successful drive.
“They’ve offered up a lot of information and data that they have and stuff that’s worked for them in the past with tabling,” he said. “Their last big registration event was fall of ’24 for the 2024 election, so they offered data from that for me to look at and to use.”
Even though CCE can offer data and an open dialogue with Muncy to give feedback, he still identified two major obstacles to registering students to vote: Getting them to listen on the quad and doing it in an off year for large elections. When Muncy arrives on campus for the drive, the next major election will be the 2026 primary.
“It’s a valid concern and really the only way around that is to actually just be out there. I mean talking to people as they’re walking by on the quad,” he said. “Of course, we’ll have ISU swag at our table … to try to pull people to the table. The more people that we can pull over, the more people we can talk to and get registered.”
To attract students, Muncy plans to use the award money for T-shirts, buttons, stickers, advertisements and flyers. A portion of the funding also will be designated for paying students who staff the table.
While getting people’s attention is imperative to the drive, Muncy's team messaging also is important.
“If you think about it, this tabling will be starting to go on in August ’25 … six or seven months after that, we’re going to be in the primary season,” he said. “You’re registering ahead to vote in March and primary elections are just as important as general elections.”
Muncy said he wants to continue ISU’s history of strong civic engagement. While the campus has been recognized before for its high student voter turnout, Muncy wants to keep the momentum on campus going so other institutions will be inspired to do the same.
“I’d like for this to be something that other campus communities can adopt for their own students,” he said. “I’d like to keep the wave going of student registrations, particularly leaning into the messaging of voting where you live.”
After the 2024 general election, ISU reported 3,233 voters on election day at the Bone Student Center and more than 300 more for early voting.
Besides Muncy, other winners of the Paul Simon Democracy Award include are from SIU, Western Illinois University and Loyola University-Chicago.
Now that he has his bachelor’s degree in political science, Muncy said he plans to apply to law school for the fall 2026 semester, ideally attending the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign.
