With Election Day quickly approaching, campus organizations are looking to make their impact on student voting in this election year. The multifaceted initiative, BC Votes, is attempting to combat the usually low voting turnout of college-age adults through events and programs directed at involving students in the political process.
"Civic engagement is of critical importance to becoming an informed, educated citizen," said Karl Bell, assistant dean of the Office of the Dean for Student Development, who developed BC Votes.
Bell said he created BC Votes because he felt that the campus needed a unified program to help students engage in the political process. "To do nothing would have been a disservice to the BC community and to our students," Bell said.
Bell saw BC Votes as a natural continuation of the Student Programs Office, which helps foster student engagement in many social and intellectual facets of life. The resulting partnership between the Student Programs Office and campus organizations like the Undergraduate Government of BC (UGBC), AID, the College Democrats of BC, and the College Republicans of BC created this grassroots registration drive.
This collaboration between university and national politics has recently become a major trend on campuses throughout the United States. University officials and campus groups are particularly focused on registering their students or ensuring that they have absentee ballots. Many schools have initiated registration drives at orientation or mediated political discussions to raise awareness.
Individual professors have also become part of this integrated political process. A professor at UMass-Amherst was recently found to be offering his students extra credit if they volunteered for a specific campaign. A BC professor undertook a similar initiative, except the professor at BC advocates non partisan student voter registration in exchange for minimal extra credit.
These far-reaching and proactive programs set forth by universities were created in response to the continuous lack of participation from college-age adults. Statistics from the Census Bureau show that citizens ages 18 to 24 had the lowest registration rate at 58 percent and also the lowest voting rate at 47 percent in 2004.The registration level and voter turnout for this age group, however, also jumped 7 and 11 percent respectively from the previous presidential election, the largest increase in both rates in recent history.
Still, voter turnout among this age group is not comparable to that of the rest of the nation. Marc Landy, a professor in the political science department, explained that historically, recently franchised voters have felt disinclined to take part in the political process.
"For so long, politics was viewed as a drab thing," Landy said. "Young people [didn't] see anything uplifting about politics in the past … they didn't view politics as a positive instrument."
Landy said that for BC students, returning to school and football are distractions that take them away from the political process.
He saw an increase in student-voter participation in the 2004 election, which he predicts will carry into this election.
Chris Denice, president of the UGBC and CSOM '09, said he believes the lack of student-voter participation to be unintentional. At BC, students often must decide whether to register in Massachusetts or in their home states. This then necessitates doing paperwork for an absentee ballot or a change-of-address form, not something for which a student with 150 pages of reading to do and a test the next day necessarily has time.
"A lot of students are out of state and mail-in ballots take a lot of effort," Denice said. "It's necessary for students to understand what they do is important on a local level, and also on a national level."
Despite these obstacles, BC Votes is working proactively to get students involved in the presidential elections. With an agenda of registration tables, awareness rallies, mock debates, and grassroots campaigning, this program hopes to get 100 percent of the BC campus registered and voting on Nov. 4.
Kris Munden, director of public action for BC Votes and A&S '11, said that while approximately 40 percent of BC is already registered to vote, the organization plans to increase this number by "knocking on every door."
Recently, Munden and other BC Votes members traveled to Upper and Newton campuses where they registered about 150 freshmen in their residence hall rooms. Munden said he believes that this on-the-spot registration is important in raising awareness.
"Doing this is putting the election on people's minds much more," he said.
BC Votes directors are also using incentives to get students to register. The program has taken part in the "Credo Mobile Ultimate College Bowl," a registration competition designed to boost student involvement. The university with the most registrations in the "Ultimate College Bowl" wins a free concert by Death Cab for Cutie.
This Friday in the Dustbowl, BC Votes will also be handing out gift cards and "supervoter" T-shirts.
BC Votes has also focused on aiding the process and trying to take the guess work out of registering to vote. In addition to providing students with the registration form, BC Votes tries to create a support system that walks new voters through the registration form.
"We are just trying to encourage people," Munden said.
Additionally, BC Votes plans to help students cast their vote on Election Day. Many college campuses are doing as much as they can to make their students' votes count, including posting absentee ballots and hosting polling stations on campus.
Bell said that he would like to provide stamps to students mailing in absentee ballots, because "how many kids keep stamps in their rooms?"
Though they are unable to host polls on campus, BC Votes currently has a busing system in the works for Nov. 4.
Denice explained that these programs have been put in place for students to take part in one of the most pivotal elections in recent history. Voting, he said, is essential to this participation.
"It's a part of the political process; to register is a good feeling, but to vote is an even better thing," Denice said.
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