From the president
Christopher Byrnes is a junior at Lafayette College, double majoring in Government & Law and Asian Studies and minoring in Data Science. He is an Obama-Chesky Voyager, Freeman Asia Scholar, McKelvy Scholar, and Co-Director of Lafayette Votes. He serves as a research assistant on multiple projects, including one study about voter mobilization tactics for college students. He is also the Director of Data Management at Every Vote Counts, a nationwide, non-partisan non-profit with over 90+ college chapters dedicated to boosting the youth vote. In 2024, he was a recipient of the Paul Tully Memorial Prize, which is given to a Lafayette student who best exemplifies political service and democratic ideals.
Personal Statement
I began civic engagement through research at Lafayette. I joined a research group called Gov Lab and experimentally tested evidence-based policymaking with over 2.5k subnational policymakers. As Co-Director of Lafayette vote, I spearheaded our democratic efforts and registered 745 new students—the size of a whole class year at Lafayette—and over 1,500 people at our on-campus polling station, which had a 3 hour long line. At the same time, I joined Every Vote Counts (EVC) a nationwide, non-partisan non-profit with over 90+ chapters dedicated to boosting the youth vote. I leveraged data analytics to boost the youth vote, support EVC’s network, and, ultimately, give young people a voice in our country. For example, we distributed $28k in civic grants to schools, shared emergency voter resource kits to 10+ schools impacted by Hurricane Helene, and impacted 1,204,065 students across 98 colleges/universities in 38 states (plus DC). Even locally, I coordinated feeding over 600 people from Lafayette’s rival, Lehigh University, which had 6-8 hour long polling lines. Overall, I anchor my civic approach in community-based coalitions and evidence-based research to support all kinds of people wherever they are and regardless of who they are and their political beliefs.