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What is Don't Stop at the Top? 

Don’t Stop at the Top is a Kent State Votes campaign built around one simple idea: a ballot isn’t finished at the top.

Most students who go to the polls vote in the headline race — president, governor, whatever’s leading the ticket that year — and stop there. Don’t Stop at the Top exists to close that gap. Through workshops, a ballot companion card, and a campus-wide pledge, this campaign walks Kent State students through everything on the November ballot, not just the part that gets the news coverage.

This is nonpartisan, education-focused work. Don’t Stop at the Top doesn’t tell you who to vote for. It makes sure that by the time you’re standing in the booth, nothing on that ballot is a surprise.

What is Ballot Rolloff? 

Ballot rolloff is what happens when a voter completes the top of the ballot and then skips, or “rolls off,” the races underneath it. It’s one of the most common — and most overlooked — patterns in American voting.

We looked at how this played out for Kent State students in the 2024 election. In the precincts where Kent State students vote most heavily, the drop-off between the top-of-ballot race and a county-level race further down ran 13 to 19 percentage points. Countywide, that same drop-off was closer to 7 points.

Put another way: roughly 1 in 6 student voters left a local race blank, compared to about 1 in 14 voters countywide. That gap is the whole reason this campaign exists.

Why Voting Your Full Ballot Matters 

It’s easy to assume the top of the ballot is where the real power is. For a lot of what touches your daily life as a Kent State student, it isn’t.

The races near the bottom of your ballot decide things like county budgets, local courts, and the makeup of the boards that oversee public transit and local government. These are the offices that shape the cost of living in Kent, how local services run, and what your community looks like while you’re here and after you leave.

Skipping them doesn’t mean you’re neutral on those decisions. It means someone else makes them for you.

What's on Your November 2026 Ballot 

Here’s a look at the kinds of races that tend to get skipped — and what they actually do.

U.S. Representative

• Members of Congress vote on the federal budget that funds Pell Grants, work-study, and student loan programs--the same aid many Kent State students use to pay for school.
• They also help set funding levels for the research grants that support faculty and graduate work on campus, and their office is often the first place to turn when you run into a federal agency problem, like a delayed U.S. Passport or a Social Security issue.
• On top of all that, redistricting moved Kent into a new congressional district for 2026, so if you have voted before, your representative may have changed even though your address did not. 

State Representative and State Senator

• These are the people who vote on Ohio's higher education funding, including the dollars that affect tuition, financial aid, and improvements to the physical campus.
• They also set policy on housing, public health, and a long list of issues that show up in your everyday life in Kent.

County Commissioner

• Commissioners control the county budget--roads, public safety funding, social services, and economic development. 
• If it's a county-level decision, a commissioner likely had a hand in it.

Local judges

• Judges decide real cases involving real people in this community, often with far more direct impact on someone's life than any national race. 
• These races almost always have the lowest turnout on the ballot, partly because they are nonpartisan and candidates are less familiar.

Local levies and ballot issues

• Depending on what's certified for the ballot, this can include funding questions that directly affect schools, libraries, and local services in Kent or in your community.

This page will be updated once the November 2026 ballot is certified, so if you are voting in Kent, you will know exactly what you will be voting on before you get there.

Take the Pledge

Don’t Stop at the Top is built on a simple commitment: vote the whole ballot, not just the top of it.

When you take the pledge, you’re telling us — and yourself — that you’re not stopping at the headline race this November. It takes less than a minute, and it’s a personal commitment, not an endorsement of any candidate or party.

Everyone who signs gets a Don’t Stop at the Top companion card, a physical guide to the decisions in front of you, so you can carry your commitment into the voting booth and all the way to the bottom of the ballot.