Student Voting Bill!

The Maryland Student Voting Rights Act of 2008 was accepted unanimously for consideration by the House of Delegates. This bill, if passed, would require the state of Maryland's public universities and colleges to allow students to register to vote while they register for classes, and it would also assign a campus official to coordinate voter registration and education activities.

However, the bill still has a long way to go. It must be approved by two more committees before the House, and then the Senate, can vote on it. If the bill is passed, it will be implemented on July 1, allowing students to register to vote while registering for fall classes. Ryan Duffy, a legislative director for Justin Ross (the delegate who introduced the bill), stated that "the main goal is just to get the law enacted by the 2010 election cycle." This was stated in "Legislators pushing student voting bill" by Ken Pitts in the Diamondback. It would be great though, if the bill was passed in time for the 2008 election.

Also in the article, senator Jim Rosapepe stated that "I think they [the school] just aren't that interested in encouraging students to vote. I mean, not everybody at the university, but I think in Student Affairs they just aren't very interested in this stuff." This was interesting to me because I had not really thought about how the school could possibly be unwilling to cooperate with efforts to get out the vote. However, the school disagreed, citing examples of their involvement, including the placement of registration forms on the dorm beds. Officials at our school said that "the university has little incentive to impede students from voting."

I think that this act will help increase voter registration, but will it also help increase voter turnout? This is a really good idea though, and it's interesting because this topic of registering for voting when registering for classes was an idea that came up during the conference. It was one of the ideas that were brainstormed at one of the workshops. It would be amazing if this could be implemented not only at Maryland, but at colleges and universities all across the country.

~Sarah