“Students for Voting Justice is a good way to get involved in politics for people who don't know where to start.” - Rayven B., intern
ORIGINS OF SVJ
Students for Voting Justice was founded in May 2020 when the co-founders, Claire Ullman and Sandy Radoff, had the idea to put their skills together to address the needs of that moment.
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Claire was teaching political science at Barnard College and heard from her students that all their summer jobs and internships had been canceled due to the pandemic, and she had started working her network to find them opportunities. Sandy, a market researcher with her own business, was a major volunteer for the Reclaim Our Vote postcard campaign of the Center for Common Ground and had already distributed about 100,000 postcards to volunteers in Manhattan – she knew that many more thousands of volunteers were needed to turn out the vote in the most important election of our lifetime. They put those two needs together and Students for Voting Justice was born.
Originally, SVJ was known as Students for Justice. In 2024, we changed our name to Students for Voting Justice, putting voting at the center of our name to reflect its centrality to our work.
OUR WORK​
We have held 11 internship sessions and provided nearly 800 paid internships since we started in 2020.
Because the internship is remote, we are able to vary the geographic focus of our efforts to work on the most important elections.
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In odd years, we work on mobilizing Black and youth voters in Virginia for its state-wide and legislative elections.
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In even years, we work on getting out the Black and youth vote in Georgia and North Carolina.
Our two 2025 sessions (spring and fall) together involved 80 young people in getting out the vote in Virginia and in New York City. 56 of those interns were at the HBCUs in NC, GA, VA, and DC where we have focused our recruitment in the past. The rest were in Queens, NY. In 2025, SVJ launched a pilot project at LaGuardia Community College in Queens to combat chronically low youth voter turnout in New York City and to take advantage of the learning opportunities
afforded by the mayoral primary and general elections. The project has been a resounding success and we hope to build on it in 2026.
In 2026, we hope to enroll at least 100 interns to get out the vote in Georgia and North Carolina. We are now raising funds towards that goal. It costs us $3,500 to enroll one intern for a 10-week session, including the intern’s stipend, the postcards and stamps, and the intern’s share of our digital marketing and educational programming costs.
​“Before this internship, I had a very pessimistic outlook on politics, but this internship showed me that a lot of good can come from political organizing.”—Robert N., intern
MEET THE CO-FOUNDERS
Claire Ullman
Claire Ullman is a political scientist who taught until recently at Barnard College and Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs. She holds a Ph.D. in political science from Columbia University and a BA from Harvard University. Before she went to graduate school, Claire helped found an emergency shelter for homeless women and children in Seattle as a VISTA volunteer and then stayed on as its development officer and then its Assistant Director. She served on the board of the Grand Street Settlement in New York City from 1995 to 2008. Finally, and perhaps most relevant to her current job as Co-Director of Students for Justice, Claire is the parent of three recent college graduates.
Sandra Radoff
Sandra Radoff is a researcher and statistician who has her own business as a marketing and opinion research consultant. She has a Masters Degree in Applied Mathematics and Statistics and recently went back to graduate school to indulge her passion by completing all the coursework towards a Masters Degree in political science. For the past several years, she has spent considerable time as an activist focusing on the environment and social justice. Being Co-Director of Students for Justice has brought the most meaningful pieces of her life together in one place. Sandra lives in New York City with her husband and has two grown children, a son and a daughter, both Millennials.
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“Seeing the outcome in the VA election gave me a genuine sense of pride. I want to continue working towards ensuring that our rights are protected.” –Jayden H., intern