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Voting and Civic Engagement

Make your voice count by registering and casting your vote on Election Day. For a list of candidates running for open positions in the upcoming election visit Ballot Ready. The last day to vote in local elections occurs on Tuesday, April 1, 2025. 

In addition, you can visit guides.vote to learn insightful and well-sourced nonpartisan information on candidate positions. These carefully researched guides allow readers to make confident voting decisions based on a clear understanding about where the candidates stand on various issues.

Register and Vote

If you are a U.S. citizen and will be 18 years old by Election Day, you may be eligible to vote. To learn more visit:

• Register to Vote (Suburban Cook County)
• Ways to Vote (Suburban Cook County)
• Check Your Voter Registration Status
• votelikeabeast.com: A site to help make sure you're registered to vote and information to help educate yourself about the candidates and issues at hand.

Not sure about whether or not you are registered to vote? Check your status, what offices you can vote for, where to vote, and who your elected officials are. Please select the county you reside in for the appropriate information.

• Surburban Cook County Voter Information
• City of Chicago Elections
• DuPage County Clerk
• Kane County Clerk
• Lake County Clerk
• McHenry County Clerk

Be an Election Judge

Students as young as 16 years old have the opportunity to serve as an election judge, a paid position. To learn more, visit the Cook County Clerk (or your local election authority):

• Work on Election Day (Suburban Cook County)

Managing Election Stress and Anxiety:

• Tips for Stressful Election Conversations: The Jed Foundation provides tips to feeling confident and comfortable in your election conversations.
• Election Stress: The Jed Foundation's tips to manage anxious feelings about politics.
• Choosing Therapy's Tips for Managing Election Anxiety
• Gonzaga University's Six Ways to Ease Election Anxiety
• Your Election Season Survival Guide by Headspace
• A Bravery Way Podcast with Monica Guzman

Additional Resources for Harper Students

• Hawks Respect Free Speech: Learn more about ways you can express your voice at Harper College, review Harper’s Free Speech and Expressive Activities Policy, and access various support.
• 3 Quick Tips for Braver Conversations: Are you looking to have less polarizing political conversations? Here are three tips to get you started.
• Braver Angels Rules of Engagement: The non-partisan organization Braver Angels provides principles and practices to engage with others.
• Get Out the Vote Voter Toolkit: An activist's toolkit for grassroots voter engagement.

Additional Resources for Harper Employees

• How to Manage Election Stress (HIP)
• Review of prohibited political activities at Harper College
• Illinois Legislative Inspector General: Prohibited Political Activities video
• Get Out the Vote Voter Toolkit: An activist's toolkit for grassroots voter engagement.

Harper College Library Resources

• CQ Voting and Elections: The CQ Press Voting & Elections Collection provides in-depth insight into the American voter, major and minor political parties, campaigns and elections, and historical and modern races for Congress, the presidency, and governorships. With key elections data, historical information and objective analysis, this dynamic research and reference tool puts the power directly into the hands of students, scholars, researchers and interested citizens.
• CQ Supreme Court Collection: The CQ Press Supreme Court Collection blends historical analysis with timely updates and expert commentary of Supreme Court decisions, biographies of Supreme Court Justices, Supreme Court institutional history, and the U.S. Constitution. Featuring summaries and analyses of more than 10,000 major decisions, it offers unique contextual framework and insight into the Court and its decisions.
• CQ Magazine: The CQ news team covers virtually every act of Congress, delivering nonpartisan news and analysis unavailable anywhere else. This weekly news magazine features in-depth reporting on public policy, politics, congressional legislation, and elections extending back to 1983, including a complete wrap-up of news on Congress, the status of bills in play, behind-the-scenes maneuvering, committee and floor activity, debates, and all roll-call votes.
• Research Guide on Voting