Student groups mobilize for voter registration

Tufts student groups and campus leaders are preparing for the U.S. general elections on Nov. 4 after states' primary elections by working to register voters and generate interest in political participation.

Vote Everywhere Ambassadors for the Andrew Goodman Foundation have organized voter registration opportunities for students and will offer more opportunities in the coming week, according to Vote Everywhere Ambassador Dana Kaufman. She added that the organization helped register voters at the student activity fair, and they are currently planing to host a full day of voter registration for National Voter Registration Day on Sept. 23. The deadline to register to vote in Massachusetts is Oct. 15.

“Our big goal is to register as many Tufts students as we can and then get them to vote,” Kaufman, a sophomore, said. “I’m surprised by the number of students who aren’t registered to vote, so I think we can definitely get a lot of students [to register].”

The ambassadors are also planning a Vote Everywhere barbecue on Oct. 3, which will aim to incorporate voter engagement with Tufts community talent, including student bands.Vote Everywhere operates through the Jonathan M. Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service, and its ambassadors will now run the Tufts Votes program that has been in place for previous years, according to Kaufman.

Kaufman explained that while the previous Tisch College project to encourage electoral participation on campus, Tufts Votes, had “fizzled away” in recent years, the Vote Everywhere ambassadors have begun managing Tufts Votes’ mission of voter engagement.

“It’s nice because Tufts Votes left a bit of infrastructure, so the website is still there and we [used] that… to try to provide information about the primary [elections],” sophomore Olivia Carle, another Vote Everywhere ambassador, said. “I see our role as a perfect combination of being politically engaged and activism.”

Last year the Andrew Goodman Foundation, an organization dedicated to educating students about civil rights and social justice, conducted a pilot of the Vote Everywhere project, in which Tufts participated, according to Nancy Thomas, the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement's director for the Initiative for the Study of Higher Education and Public Life at Tisch College.

“It’s the first year [Vote Everywhere] has been in full swing at the foundation,” Thomas said. “I think the foundation will want to continue it, but they will probably be doing some kind of assessment [of the project].”

Thomas explained that the goal is to not only register people locally to increase the voting rates, but to make voting accessible nationally, particularly if there is a candidate or an issue of interest.

“I run a national study on college student voting, and there’s a big difference between the voting rates on college campuses of the students who vote locally and those who vote in their hometown,” she said. “It’s an enormous indicator for voting.”

Tufts Democrats will also continue to offer nonpartisan voter registration opportunities in conjunction with Tufts Votes and the Goodman Foundation team alongside their campaigning efforts for Democratic candidates, according to Tufts Democrats Co-Presidents Sam Kelly and Maggie Morrow.

“We spend a lot of our election season not working with the Democratic Party, but doing nonpartisan voter registration, because one of the things our club really cares about is voter participation, in addition to electing Democratic candidates,” Morrow, a senior, said.

Tufts Republicans President Ellie Monroe said that the group is already focusing on the general elections.

"Tufts Republicans is planning on working with the Massachusetts Alliance of College Republicans and Mass Victory throughout the election season to support various local candidates, and we are specifically working on supporting Charlie Baker's campaign for Governor," Monroe told the Daily in an email.

One challenge Tufts students face for voting is that the campus is split into four different voting precincts, all of which have different polling locations, which generates complicated registration rules for students, according to Thomas.

Kaufman added that even moving within Medford or Somerville through a dorm change means that you have to notify the city that you have moved.

“It divides up different residence halls that are downhill or uphill… and off-campus is even more [divided],” Kaufman said.

As in years past, Tufts Democrats will be providing shuttles to the four polling locations to which students on campus will be assigned, Kelly, a senior, said.

Both Kelly and Thomas also identified lack of voter interest as a problem, especially compared to the 2012 presidential election.

“One of the things we see nationally is that college students are pretty engaged in local communities and they tend to do a lot of service learning, but political engagement is way lower,” Thomas said.

Kelly also said generating student interest in elections can be difficult in non-presidential years.

“One challenge we always have, especially in midterms, is explaining why this particular election [is important],” Kelly said.

He cited the Massachusetts gubernatorial election as one of particular interest to students. Besides providing opportunities to register on campus, both Tufts Democrats and Tufts Votes will help students register out of state. Kelly added that Tufts Democrats will be traveling around Massachusetts and the New England area to support Democratic candidates in the area.