Vote-CP

Candidates Reaching Out to Youth

2008-05-21T06:54:00.000-07:00

The youth are a huge demographic in the elections this year, and the candidates are aware of this. All the candidates are reaching out to the youth, trying hard to rally their vote. Even in mid-March, "more than 5.7 million voters under the age of 30 [had] participated in the primaries and caucuses held thus far. That's a 109 percent increase from the last set of presidential primaries, according to Rock the Vote," and I'm sure the numbers have increased since then ("Young Voters Could Put Obama or Clinton in the White House"). The youth are voting in huge numbers this year, and the youth can really make a difference in the election.

Hillary Clinton tried to mobilize youth by setting up a "feature on [the campaign's] web site that allows Facebook users to ask her questions." Clinton also stated that "we should even have a government blogging team where people in the agencies are constantly telling all of you...everything that's going on so that you have up-to-the-minute information about what your government is doing" ("Clinton Chasing Youth Vote: 'We Should Have a Government Blogging Team!' ")

However, Barack Obama seems to be more successful in bringing in the youth vote. Compared to Clinton, "Obama has captured more than 50 percent of the vote of 18-to-29-year-olds in nearly every primary contest to date," according to Cora Currier's "Obama's Youth Movement." How is Obama doing this? Obama's "organization on campuses is excellent, and he has tapped successfully into the power of social networking sites and the viral messaging of YouTube" (Currier). At South Carolina State University, Obama even had big-name celebrities help him. Usher, Kerry Washington, and Chris Tucker helped him to recruit for the primaries ("Usher Brings Obama a Little Love").

On the Republican side, John McCain is also, to the surprise of some, getting some votes of the youth. McCain "won the youth vote in more states than any other GOP contender on Super Tuesday" and he is also "perceived by voters and the media to be a maverick with good credentials on some top youth issues" (Michael Connery's blog (he's the guy from the IMPACT conference!)). At the MTV/ MySpace candidate dialogue, "he knocked it out of the park and actually gained ground among the young voters watching and participating in the debate" (Michael Connery). Also, I had no idea about this and this is really cool, but Connery mentions that McCain has "made high profile appearances in hit movies like the Wedding Crashers, hit TV shows like 24, and he's been on the Daily Show more times than [he] can count."

All of the candidates are targeting the youth in some way, and we'll watch as the youth turnout hopefully increases.

~Sarah

And, we're seniors.

2008-05-19T11:37:00.000-07:00

This has been a really busy semester for Team Vote-CP. There's just been so much going on that the time just literally flew by. So here's a few updates on what's been going on for us:

In March, we attended the IMPACT conference, held at Northeastern University. It's a conference on student service, advocacy, and social action, and (in my opinion), it was an extremely rewarding experience. While the main focus of our research is centered around the University of Maryland, one of our goals is to assess how well our research would apply to other schools or in other places around the country. The conference gave us a great chance to talk to people from different backgrounds who were interested in our topic and see what is going on at other schools, as well as to find out whether the attitudes we discovered from our focus groups were farther-reaching. We learned a lot about methods that other people are using to reach out to youth voters. But more importantly, we learned a couple of key points that consistently get voters out and keep them interested. The first thing was the importance of peer-to-peer contact: approaching someone in person is much more effective than electronic or mechanized outreach (like form emails or pre-recorded phone messages). Also, in order to keep youth participation up, it is important that we, as a society, make civic engagement a part of everyday life once again, rather than letting it continue to be something that comes up once every few years. Overall, the focus that we gained was on sustainable engagement--making sure that whatever we do, it does more than just work now, it keeps working in the future.

After we came back from the conference, we got word back from the IRB: our survey had been approved for distribution. Yay us! So we uploaded our survey on surveymonkey.com, and for the months of April and May we sent out the link to everyone we could, asking that they take the survey. We also got paper copies printed and distributed those in classes and outside the dining hall on campus. All in all, we got almost 1000 surveys filled out. A couple of weeks ago, we sat down as a team and looked at the results and found two major trends. First, students want easier access to information on the candidates. This, we anticipated, for the most part. The other trend we saw kind of surprised me. Over 70% of the students we surveyed told us they were registered to vote at their home address. In retrospect, this makes sense, since most people I know registered in their high schools in assemblies and the like. But the reason this surprised me is because sooooo many GOTV efforts I've seen since getting to UMD have focused on re-registering voters at their College Park addresses. Anyway, based on this we developed our tactic for next semester!

Now, as finals have come to an end and everyone's moving home for the summer or getting into the groove of their internships, we've got a couple of (super-important) things to get done. First, we've gotta work the kinks out of the tactic we're planning on. Also, we're applying for additionally funding so we can actually implement the tactic. Third, we've got to re-apply to everyone's favorite, IRB, to make sure we can actually do the research.

Anyway, that's the update on this semester. We're all hyper-excited for the fall, when the really FUN part of our experiment happens. See you then for more updates!

Update on the 2008 Election Campaign!

2008-05-06T10:55:00.000-07:00

Today is a big day for the Democratic candidates with the largest remaining primaries held in Indiana and North Carolina. It is a close race in both states with a total of 187 pledged delegates at stake. Currently, Barack Obama is leading Hillary Clinton with 1,745 delegates to 1,608 delegates. In order to secure the nomination, the candidate will need a total of 2,025 delegate votes. In both Indiana and North Carolina today, the "turnout was reported brisk" according to the Washington Post article titled "Voter Turnout Brisk in Ind., N.C."

The candidates have been splitting their time campaigning in both states. Clinton said that "this election is about jobs, jobs, jobs" and "championed her proposal to suspend the federal gas tax for the summer" according to "Two Candidates, Two States and One Big Day" in the Washington Post. Bill Clinton has also been helping his wife campaign. He has been traveling to the small towns and rural areas where people would never expect him to go to where people “love him just for coming” (In Small Towns, Bill Clinton Finds A Campaign Niche, Washington Post).

Obama has also been campaigning on many of the similar issues as Clinton. He “[dismissed] her proposed gas tax holiday as a gimmick that would amount to a mere $30 per voter while costing highway construction jobs” (“Two Candidates…”).

For the Republican party, John McCain has secured the GOP nomination on February 29^th and has a total of 1,266 total delegates (msnbc.com).

After today’s primaries, there will be 217 pledged delegates left in the states of West Virginia, Kentucky, Puerto Rico, Oregon, Montana, South Dakota, Michigan, and Florida (“Eight Questions About Today’s Primaries,” Washington Post). It will be interesting to see the results of today’s primaries and to watch the rest of the primaries to see how the 2008 campaign unfolds…

~Sarah

Voting Technology : The Not-So-Simple Act of Casting a Ballot Lecture

2008-04-02T17:01:00.001-07:00

Yesterday, our team had the opportunity to attend a lecture given by Dr. Paul Herrnson, Director of the Center for American Politics and Citizenship. Dr. Herrnson recently published a book entitled Voting Technology : The Not-So-Simple Act of Casting a Ballot. His lecture was based on his research findings on the subject of how voters respond to voting equipment. With the voting fiasco that occurred in the 2000 Presidential election, as well as the Help America Vote Act in 2002, there is much to learn on this subject.

Although Dr. Herrnson is not a get-out-the-vote advocate, his research is very important to our team. One of the main findings in our focus group was that voting is not as easy as it could be. Students complained about everything from obtaining an absentee ballot to actual mishaps of voting machines. Not being able to vote accurately is not only frustrating, but it undermines the actual effort an individual makes to actually go and vote.

In his research Dr. Herrnson found that poorly designed voting methods lead to big problems. The worst methods included systems with less visible computerization, while touch screens outperformed all other systems. To improve accuracy, it is important to give people more control over the voting process and present less information at a time.

How can we use Dr. Herrnson's findings? Well perhaps our get-out-the-vote tactic will focus on educating the student population about the proper procedures of voting. One may think that college students are tech savvy and do not need to be taught how to operate a voting system, but who knows? This could be why students opt not to vote - its too complicated.

All in all, Dr. Herrnson's research did not focus on what we are focusing on. But his lecture proved beneficial because his research delves deeper into one of the reasons students said they do not vote - lack of ease.

-alka

Student Voting Bill!

2008-03-21T17:59:00.000-07:00

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

Increased Youth Voter Turnout in Primaries!!

2008-02-13T20:16:00.000-08:00

The youth are voting! This year, youth are coming out from all over and casting their ballot in the primaries around the country. For example, in the democratic primaries Obama won the votes of 76 percent of Virginia Democrats under age 30 and 64 percent in Maryland. In both states, he did better than Clinton in nearly every age group, although Clinton had stronger support among older voters. Why is this the year for such a high turnout? Well after discussing the issue with my peers I realized that one reason is because of who is running. Obama, for example, came to the University of Maryland on February 12th. Thousands of students, including myself, waited in frigid weather for over an hour and a half to hear his 40 minute speech. The enthusiasm inside the Comcast Center was remarkable. Even my friends who vote republican were there to support him. This is why so many college students came out on Tuesday – because they finally found a candidate they believe in and can place their trust in. Many of the issues Obama discussed had to do with us – like increasing the minimum wage and ensuring ample employment opportunities post graduation - of course we would respond to that with much fervor…

But there has to be more – this is only what I’ve gathered at UMD…

According to CIRCLE stats, youth voter turnout increased in almost all of the states apart of "Super Tuesday”. This time around, candidates are really reaching out to our population. In fact, four of the main contenders, Obama, Clinton, McCain, and Huckabee, have sections on their campaign website directed at youth voters. Also, with applications on Facebook and MySpace, candidates are logging online to campaign.

With so many young people voting, we may have the power to take control of the election. The high turnout in the primaries is a good indicator of what could happen on November 4th. This is huge. The fact that our age group could select the next president is thrilling.

Going back to UMD, the voting process was improved upon this time. Instead of 4 machines, there were 12 voting machines at Ritchie Coliseum for 2,211 registered voters, and 15 units for the 2,837 assigned to Stamp. Students had to wait in line, but many were impressed with the improvement in efficiency. I even talked to some students who were in and out in less than 10 minutes. The University is taking the rights steps to encourage our students to vote. Small things, such as more voting machines, to big events like Obama, Huckabee, and Chelsea Clinton coming to campus, are attempted efforts to get students rallied up. Just the visible improvement from November 2007 provides our team with hope – and we are there to fill in the rest!

Happy Primaries!

-alka

Potomac Primaries Tomorrow: Where are you going to be?

2008-02-11T18:37:00.000-08:00

Primaries in Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, DC are tomorrow, February 12. We’re holding primaries 1 week after Super Tuesday. And for the first time that I can remember, our primary is actually kind of a big deal. Clinton and Obama are pretty much neck and neck, and Huckabee’s still putting up a fair fight against McCain. So, the university has become a pretty important place to visit for the campaigns, especially over this past weekend. (Check out the cover of today’s Diamondback!)

On Friday, actor Kal Penn (that’s Kumar, of Harold & Kumar fame, currently on House and, last I heard, a visiting professor in the film department of UPenn—how cool would it be to take a class from Kumar?!) made a stop on campus to speak in support of Obama.

On Saturday, something like a thousand people turned up at the Union to attend a rally for Mike Huckabee, a pretty impressive turnout for a Republican at a traditionally leftist campus. I saw a lot of “I Like Mike” signs all day—even at the basketball game Saturday night (yeah Terps!).

Sunday saw Chelsea Clinton (who had all but disappeared from the public eye until relatively recently) stopping by Stamp to hold a relatively small Q & A session for her mom. Hillary herself was out in Manassas, VA on Sunday morning, and spoke at a rally of about a thousand supporters up at Bowie State the same night.

And, of course, today saw the biggest event of them all. Barack Obama turned up on campus to speak at 12:30 this afternoon, and found an essentially full Comcast Center. Comcast seats 17,950 –I looked it up on the facilities website –and there were also people standing on the court, so I’d say there were over 18,000 people who turned up for this particular gem of a rally.

All in all, I’d say this is a HUGE amount of attention being paid to the University of Maryland this weekend in preparation for the “Potomac Primaries” tomorrow. And that’s awesome. Just, absolutely great. And even better than the fact that campaigns are reaching out to us is the fact that people are showing up for these events. It shows that young people are interested in this election, and that’s awesome.

I really wish I could have attended all four of these events, because I think it would have been very interesting to see what each of them had to say. Unfortunately, I was only able to make it to the Obama event today. But one thing that he said today really jumped out at me.

He mentioned how his campaign has been able to get young people involved. Then he said that the political pundits have been like, “so what? Howard Dean did the same thing, but it didn’t mean anything, because the young people didn’t show up to vote.” Now, Obama’s point in bringing this up was to point out that this year, young people ARE showing up to vote (because they are. Not always for Obama, but young people are voting more this year than in the past, pretty much across the board—check out CIRCLE at civicyouth.org for some fact sheets on the topic). But what concerns me more is what these political pundits are saying. Now, I don’t know specifically who Obama was referring to, or when those people were saying such things, or even if this is true. But, let’s say for a minute that it is. I really think this puts us, as young people, in a really terrible position. People don’t have trust in us, in our abilities to stand by what we believe in and take action where we can. For any figure in politics to discount the impact of mobilizing young people simply perpetuates this cycle. We’ve seen this discussion before. Which came first—young people not caring about politics, or politicians not caring about young people? (Chicken or egg much?) Why can we not break free of this trap?

So here’s what I think. I think that we, as young people, need stay involved in this election process. We need to show that we are a force to be reckoned with. We need to prove those pundits wrong. Be it tomorrow, the next few months, this November, or any time for the rest of our lives: we need to be the generation that changes everyone’s minds. We need to show up at the polls and vote.

-Supraja

2007-12-16T14:56:00.000-08:00

I’ve been working on writing this entry for like, a week, but I keep getting caught up in other stuff—oh, the woes of finals week. Let’s just pretend that the timeline of what I’ve written makes sense, eh?

When I woke up this morning, I had an e-mail in my inbox from Rock the Vote, about the Iowa caucuses. I didn’t really know much about what’s going on out there, but when I read the e-mail (which I’ve posted below), I got really angry.

“Over the past week, several campaigns, candidates and political reporters have stated that college students who moved to Iowa to attend school should not vote in the Iowa caucuses.

“These statements are a frustrating and disappointing attempt to suppress the student vote, and are also legally incorrect. According to the Iowa Secretary of State, all Iowa students have the right to vote in the town where they attend college in Iowa. From the Secretary’s website:

‘If you are from another state (i.e. Illinois) and are attending college in Iowa (i.e. Iowa State University), you may register to vote in:

your Iowa college town or

your home state (hometown) and vote absentee - subject to the laws of your home state.’

“To tell students that they can only vote in the town that they came from, rather than in the town where they live, is a clear effort to disenfranchise student voters. Attempts on the part of campaigns to deter eligible voters from voting should be forcefully and immediately denounced.

“These statements are even more disturbing given the unprecedented levels of engagement we’re seeing from today’s young voters – both in participating in the 2008 campaigns, organizing their peers to register and vote in the caucuses and primaries, and in their recent historic turnout levels in the 2004 and 2006 elections. Young adults’ growing political participation should be encouraged, not deterred.

“Rock the Vote urges every campaign and candidate to issue a statement that validates students’ right to vote in Iowa and lauds young Americans for their increased engagement in the political process. We also encourage all media outlets to make clear in their reporting leading up to January 3rd that college students have rights equal to any Iowa resident to vote in the Iowa caucuses.

“Students go to a college or university for 4 or 5 years and many stay on in those communities afterwards. They pay sales tax, many work full or part-time jobs and pay income tax, and they are subject to the laws of the community in which they live – they have every right to vote in that community, legally and morally.

“It is important to note that this is an issue larger than the Iowa caucuses. Legally, students have the right to vote where they go to school in virtually every state across the country. Despite this, we see challenges to student voters year after year. As we have in the past, Rock the Vote will make sure all students know their rights in 2008, and will work to ensure all eligible voters are allowed to register and vote in the 2008 elections.

“Rock the Vote’s Iowa program Rock the Caucus aims to mobilize high school and college students to caucus on January 3rd. As always, Rock the Vote will aggressively ensure young people know that if they live in Iowa, they can vote in Iowa, and let them know where candidates stand on important issues like student voting rights.

“Again, Rock the Vote urges every candidate to issue a statement that clearly validates students’ right to vote in Iowa and lauds young Americans for their increased engagement in the political process.

Learn more about our Iowa program and pledge to Rock the Caucus, here: http://www.rockthevote.com/rockthecaucus

First off, I just want to point out that I find it absolutely ridiculous that this is even an issue in today’s world. The 26^th amendment gave students the right to vote once they turn 18. Period. Students should know that by now. No campaign, candidate, or reporter should have any opportunity to convince them otherwise. People should know that by now.

Moving on.

I’m sorry, but this just makes me really, really angry. I found another article on politico.com (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1207/7378.html) about this same issue. It reminds me of all of those terrible things I learned about in high school US History class, things that happened so long ago to keep certain groups from voting—the Grandfather Clause, poll taxes, literacy tests, gerrymandering, and so on. Some people may say that’s taking it a step far, but to me, the intent is largely the same. Trying to convince students in Iowa not to vote is a blatant attempt to disenfranchise student voters. And it’s absolutely ridiculous. [Aside: On a personal level, for me, the primaries and caucuses don’t affect me. I’m registered as an independent and the state of Maryland holds primaries after the presidential nominees are effectively set]. But you’d better believe that If I went to school in Iowa, or any other state that had such major clout in the electoral process (like the Iowa caucuses or the New Hampshire primaries), or in a swing state for that matter, I would re-register with a party in that state in a heartbeat.

One of the things that we keep talking about in our project is how important it is to maximize youth turnout, because every vote counts. But, as unfortunate as it is, some votes count more than others. Votes in the Iowa caucus end up playing a bigger role than votes in primaries in states like Maryland. Students in Iowa are allowed to vote in Iowa, and honestly it’s the best strategic move. Because what is the election process if not a game of strategy? Candidates use all these different tactics to maximize the votes they get, so that they can get into office. It’s perfectly legitimate for voters to use similar strategic moves to get their votes to have the most effect.

But I digress.

Anyway, the part of this issue that is most pertinent to out project is the fact that students might be affected by such terrible moves on the part of the campaigns, candidates, and the media. As far as I know, in most states students are allowed to re-register with their school address in the state. To what extent are students across the country unaware of this rule?

Based on my experiences here at Maryland, I feel like most people know that they can register in College Park, because the SGA and other student groups (like the College Democrats and College Republicans and the New Voters Project at MaryPIRG) have, in the past, put in significant efforts to register students with their campus addresses. But hearing about such a terrible occurrence in Iowa makes me wonder if this is true here at Maryland, as well as what the situation is at other schools. Is this issue something we need to be concentrating on in our research?

Well, that’s that for now. Back to finals studying—good luck to everyone else on finals.

Happy Holidays, all!

-Supraja

Input from Rock the Vote's Chris Kennedy

2007-12-12T08:31:00.000-08:00

I corresponded with Chris Kennedy from Rock the Vote via email, and interviewed him.

The purpose of Rock the Vote is to increase the political voice of the youth in America. This past August, Young Voter Strategies integrated their programs with Rock the Vote's programs. They hope that this integration will lead to more effective efforts to get out the vote for youth.

Rock the Vote plans to register 2 million young voters for the 2008 election. I hope that this goal will be reached. In the "Top Ten Tips to Mobilize Young Voters" by Young Voter Strategies, it states that "in 2004, 81 percent of registered 18-29 year olds voted." Thus, registering new voters plays a huge role in increasing youth vote. This is something to keep in mind for our team as we develop our mobilization tactic.

Chris Kennedy is a research analyst at Rock the Vote, and his "primary job responsibility is to coordinate voter registration field experiments across various media (direct mail, email, Facebook, in-person, online advertising, etc.). [He] also [analyzes] Census data on youth voting, [conducts] forecasting and [creates] targets from [their] registration database, and [helps] with online organizing activities."

He gave us a lot of great advice and suggested new resources. He suggested a software program that our team should look into, for doing online surveys. He also said that he would be happy to hear about our continuing progress. It would be great to continue our correspondence with him, and to hear his input regarding our project.

~Sarah

A Look into Tactics Already at Work at UMD

2007-12-04T17:02:00.000-08:00

I met with Student Government Association President, Andrew Friedson, to discuss voting initiatives that the SGA and the University are taking to increase the youth vote on campus. As president, one of Andrew’s goals is to convey to students that voting is essential.

The SGA has attempted various tactics to register students on campus to vote. These tactics include dorm storming, registering at major campus events, and visiting student group meetings. Also, voting in elections was emphasized in the Freshmen Welcome Convocation. In fact, on every packaged lunch handed out to new students, there was a sticker that read, “Terps Vote!” on it. Another interesting tactic was to place a voter registration card and a stamped envelope on all 11,000 on-campus beds when students moved in. Finally, during the City Council Election in November, the SGA provided vans to transport students to voting polls.

Since the beginning of the Fall 2007 semester, the SGA has registered 1,064 new students. While this number may seem low compared to the 25,000 undergrads at the University, it is a step in the right direction. Friedson noted that a main reason for student’s lack of desire to register in College Park is because they do not want to change their voting rights from their home county or state. In the focus groups we conducted on October, we found this reason to be very true.

Another reason why students are apathetic toward voting is because they are a dynamic group, and politicians do not really look for their support. Students are mobile – they come to college for 4 years, and then move on. Their residence is constantly changing, so it is difficult to get a grasp on them. Students also want sudden changes. Many issues and bills take ages to pass through the political world, so students oftentimes get frustrated with the slow process, and see no point of it.

This should not be the case. Compared to older demographics, students have more time and a true investment in politics. Even is a policy takes 10 years to be implemented, we will still be around to feel its effects. Students are also more active than other demographics. We seek change constantly, whether it is environmentally or socially, so we should advocate for the politicians who can help bring about these changes.

During my interview, I asked Andrew how the administration plays a role in the topic of youth voting. I learned that every publicly funded University is required to make some initiative in registering students to vote. Although the SGA is involved in many of the tactics around campus, it is important to note that the administration is funding these ploys. For example, it was administration that paid for all of those stamped envelops placed on resident’s beds when they moved in.

Currently, there are debates going on regarding a full time staff member at the University whose main job would be to register students. This is a great idea – to have one person lead this initiative would establish a permanent awareness of the issue.

In regards to our team, Andrew suggested meeting with other groups on campus that are doing similar things as us. For example, the College Democrats, College Republicans, and Republican Women are all trying to register students to vote. Andrew also noted it is difficult to build passion into people, so it may not be worth our efforts to try to target those who students who just do not care about voting. Of course our final decisions will be made based on survey results, but his points are well taken.

- Alka Jhaveri

Low Student Voter Turnout in College Park City Council Elections

2007-11-21T13:27:00.000-08:00

On November 6, 2007, the elections for the College Park City Council were held. Although the statistics of the student voter turnout will not be known for certain until later on, the turnout was still low. SGA hoped to bring 200 students out to the election polls and managed to register 1,064 students. However, the Diamondback article "Student Turnout Far Short of SGA Goal" states that only 25 to 30 students came to get a ride to the polling site. Because some students used a different mode of transportation, the turnout may be a bit higher.

As a team researching college students' voter turnout, we are interested in why students did not vote at the election. This low turnout may be partly due to a lack of media coverage and a lack of knowledge about the election. I saw almost nothing regarding the election. I did happen to notice a flyer in my apartment about the candidates and the election, but the flyer was not very noticeable among all the other papers pinned on the wall. Perhaps, the election could be publicized more on campus, so that the students would be more aware of the election and the issues.

Also, there was "some discontent expressed over the uncontested elections." Perhaps if the races were more highly anticipated, then more students would have voted. As a group, we also discussed that the inconvenience of voting may have hindered students. If the voting polls were on campus, would this change the voter turnout? Also, the topic of apathy was discussed. Some students may think that they see no immediate changes from the elections, and if the results of the election did not affect them in the immediate present, then why bother voting when they plan on leaving College Park in a few years after they graduate?

Whatever the reason for the low student voter turnout, we hope to implement a tactic that can increase the voting on campus.

- Sarah

Colbert '08?

2007-11-08T13:11:00.000-08:00

I'm a little late with this post, but I wanted to get it right.

People always say that college students don't really pay attention to the world around them. To some extent this is true--we live in a bubble. For the most part, we get our news from The Diamondback, not the Post or the Times. Instead of the TV News, we watch Best Week Ever and The Daily Show and the Colbert Report. Now there are exceptions to these rules, but I'm making sweeping generalizations on what I see around me. So personally, I try to do what I can to stay informed. And one thing I noticed over the past few weeks, was that every time I'd look at different news sites, Colbert's name kept popping up.

For the most part, when we ran our focus groups, the people we talked to said that their decisions to vote or not vote were not really influenced by the media. But I'm not sure how much I believe this. For one thing, the sample of people we talked to was not a representative sample of UMD students. The students who came were the ones who are interested in our topic and already have views on the issues we're concerned with, regardless of what those views might be. So when I was reading all those articles about Stephen Colbert's presidential bid, I couldn't help but wonder how effective this tactic might be for our purposes.

Don't get me wrong, I know it was a complete publicity stunt--I mean, running in South Carolina as a Democrat AND a Republican? But I keep thinking about all the people who, over the past three years, I've seen with shirts, bumper stickers, sweatshirts, bags, whatever merchandise, that reads "Stewart-Colbert '08". Yeah, they're meant as a joke, but would it actually work? What I mean is, John Stewart and Stephen Colbert have a massive fan base, and most of that following they have is made up of the younger generation--mostly students, and probably some young professionals. So if the two of them actually did run for office, wouldn't it logically bring more of that demographic group to the polls?

Now, Colbert's candidacy has been ended because it was just completely ridiculous. But one of the articles I read raised a number of points of view on why Colbert should or shouldn't be allowed to run. The one argument that stood out the most to me was that having Colbert on the ballot would siphon votes from other candidates. But his 'candidacy' also united so many people behind him (I can't find the article I read this in, but somewhere I read that the majority of the population of the University of South Carolina was supporting his bid).

But that brings me back to the whole issue of living in a college bubble. Colbert seems to have raised awareness, among the youth population of S.C., of the election process. But this effort was shot down, because essentially the way he went about it was deemed insulting by so many people. So what we really need, I think, is to expand the college bubble to include the political system--if we can unite behind Colbert, we should be able to unite behind the idea that our votes today affect our lives, now and in the future, and we should use the opportunity to make sure that our voices are heard.

So yeah, he did this as a joke this time. And yeah, the way he went about it outraged a lot of people, who said he was making a mockery of our system. But I guess the question that I'm really trying to pose is this: Will Colbert's little publicity stunt, and the media hype surrounding it, help get more youth voters to the polls?

My answer? I certainly hope so.

-Supraja

Voter Registration is an Issue

2007-10-25T07:50:00.000-07:00

Our team conducted three focus groups during the week of October 15, 2007. With a diverse group of people, the focus groups enabled our team to ask students whether or not they vote, their reasons for voting/not voting, and different voting tactics that are effective. One of the main ideas we took away from the focus group is it seems that the problem regarding low youth voter turnout can be partly attributed to the fact that many students are not registered to vote. It turns out that some students do not even know how or where to register. One student claimed that they only reason he registered was because his friend wanted to – and knew where to.
Perhaps the issue of low youth voter turnout is not an issue of apathy. In his article, Campus voting access not making the grade, Ben Adler asserts that, “Turnout on college campuses has been depressed by some simple but strong barriers.” Some students cannot register to vote, some do not have the time to wait in long lines, and others are turned away because they do not have proper identification.
Voter ID laws require voters to have proper identification when voting. But some students do not have a proper form of ID, or they do not think to bring it with them when voting. Furthermore, there Registration – however many students in college do not reside at their permanent address.
Long lines are also a problem. Many of our friends wanted to vote at Stamp but simply could not wait in the lines that were backed up for hours. Even participants in our focus groups were turned off by all of the waiting. The President of our Student Government, Andrew Friedson, claims that the process that sets the number of voting machines before the registration deadline acts too quickly. On college campuses, where students arrive in September and may not register until the last minute, it can result in having too few voting machines. Friedson and other student leaders are advocating a state bill to make more machines available on our campus. The bill would also “give each student a fixed in-state address for the purpose of voting.”
These are important factors that team VOTE-CP must keep in mind when continuing with our research. We predicted that long lines at Stamp were a major source of low voter turnout, and it is encouraging to learn that we are fighting for more voting machines. The problem of low registration is something we may want to tackle – the sooner we can get students registered, the more likely we are to increase the machine count at Stamp. Hopefully more machines would lead to a higher turnout in 2008.
In the next weeks, our team will further analyze focus group results and begin developing our survey.

--Alka Jhaveri