Matthew Segal is a 2008 graduate of Kenyon College and is the founder and executive director of the Student Association for Voter Empowerment (SAVE). A national non-profit organization with over 10,000 members and chapters on more than 35 college campuses throughout the country, SAVE's mission is to increase young voter participation by removing access barriers and promoting stronger civic education. Matthew also serves as a national co-chair of 80 Million Strong, a coalition of leading youth organizations committed to addressing the current youth unemployment crisis. 80 Million Strong seeks to create new workforce opportunities that tap the unique talents of young people while serving the national interest.

Segal, 23, has significant experience with young voters, testifying on multiple occasions before the U.S. Congress about voting problems in college districts. He has stood with U.S. senators and members of Congress leading a lobbying effort of more than 1,000 students for the Voting Rights Act reauthorization. He was appointed a senior research fellow and national democracy coordinator for the Roosevelt Institution, a 7,000-member national student think tank. He is a leader on Ohio Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner's Voting Rights Advisory Council. He guides regular workshops and panels on youth-voter mobilization and voter-participation trends. He also contributes a blog to The Huffington Post.

Matthew is a regular commentator in the press and has appeared on CNN Newsroom, Fox and Friends, The Rachel Maddow Show on MSNBC, The Today Show on NBC and has been quoted extensively by the Associated Press, Politico, the U.S. News and World Report, The Columbus Dispatch, and the Chronicle for Higher Education among several other newspapers and television outlets.

For more info, please visit http://savevoting.org

Blog Entries by Matthew Segal

Taking Back the Microphone

Posted September 29, 2009 | 10:00 AM (EST)


By Ari A. Matusiak, Matthew Segal, & Hilary Doe

There is a tired truism in politics: if you are not heard above the din, you have not spoken. Such is true for the national debate on health care reform these past few weeks, driven and derided by din. Whether...

Read Post

80 Million Strong!

Posted March 18, 2009 | 12:46 PM (EST)


By Matthew Segal, Caitlin Howarth and Maya Enista

The U.S. House of Representatives passed the Generations Invigorating Volunteerism and Education (GIVE) Act yesterday by a vote of 321 to 105, a major victory for young people. Similar to its Senate companion, the Serve America Act, this bill will expand access...

Read Post

How Long Do You Have to Stand In Line to Vote Before Your Civil Rights Are Violated?

Posted October 29, 2008 | 05:29 PM (EST)


It's time we reclaim the media narrative: it seems as though every 15 minutes, a different news network is decrying how the integrity of our elections has been marred and how, no matter what happens now, the result of November 4th should be called into question.

Well, they are right...but...

Read Post

The Case for the College Voters

Posted October 29, 2008 | 04:54 PM (EST)


About a month before my friend Ohio Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones passed away last August, she spoke before a large student gathering and prophetically read the words of Bernice Johnson Regan: "The older I get the better I know that the secret of my going on," she said, "is when...

Read Post

A Tribute To My Friend, Stephanie Tubbs Jones

Posted August 21, 2008 | 11:54 AM (EST)


Most everybody who is a friend or colleague of mine has come to know of my friendship with Stephanie Tubbs Jones over the past few years. I liked to talk about her — the loud and proud gentlelady from Ohio, the sassy fighter for social justice who always wore bright...

Read Post

Breaking News: The Millennial Generation Wants New Media Coverage

Posted October 15, 2007 | 11:10 AM (EST)


I must confess: when reading Thomas Friedman's October 10 article "Generation Q," I couldn't help but think of a lyric from Bob Dylan's song "Troubled and I Don't Know Why," in which Dylan sings, "Oh what did the newspaper tell?/ Well, it rolled in the door/ And it laid...

Read Post

"We Card Hard": Voter ID Laws Surface in States

Posted October 11, 2007 | 07:45 AM (EST)


The following piece was produced by the Huffington Post's OffTheBus project.

Two weeks ago, September 25th, the United States Supreme Court agreed to consider a case on voter ID laws. The case, appealed in the seventh circuit court, requires registered voters in the state of Indiana to provide a...

Read Post

Actual Evidence of Voter Fraud is Minimal

Posted October 9, 2007 | 06:10 PM (EST)


Last Tuesday, September 25th, the United States Supreme Court agreed to consider a case on voter ID laws. The case, appealed in the seventh circuit court, requires registered voters in the state of Indiana to provide a government-issued photo ID in order to cast a ballot. Proponents of the law...

Read Post