Tufts Hillel will help students participate in the upcoming presidential election by sponsoring a Rock the Vote event at the campus center today during open block.
The goal of the event is to accrue "100 absentee ballot requests in one hour," said sophomore Rebecca Hershow, co-coordinator of Hillel's Rock the Vote. "We're really stressing absentee ballots."
Hillel will set up two tables, one for voter registration and the other for absentee ballot requests. Out-of-state students who are not already registered to vote can both register and apply for an absentee ballot at the event.
Rock the Vote will also include a raffle for a $20 gift certificate to the local ice cream store J.P. Licks. When students sign up for the raffle, they will provide their phone numbers and e-mail addresses so that Rock the Vote can contact them several weeks before the election with a reminder to fill out their absentee ballots.
If students bring filled-out ballots to the event today, Rock the Vote will mail them for free. Tufts Votes maintains a separate and ongoing ballot drop-box to mail student absentee ballots, according to Rock the Vote Co-Coordinator Amy Glazier, a sophomore.
In setting up the event, Rock the Vote worked with the campus organizations Tufts Votes, Tufts Democrats, Tufts Republicans and Tufts for Obama. Representatives from some of these groups "are going to come with candidate information just to make sure people are informed," Hershow said.
Glazier and Hershow are co-chairs of Hillel's Social Action Committee and came up with the idea for Rock the Vote over the summer.
"This is our first big event," Hershow said. "We decided to do Rock the Vote and got a lot of really great support from Hillel."
Hillel has not endorsed either of the candidates for president. "We're nonpartisan," Glazier said.
