Politically engaged campus? Check. A historic election approaching? Check. Internet access? Check. For college students, the motivations and ways to vote — even for those living long distances from their hometowns and voting booths — are innumerable.
But in spite of what seems to be a growing youth voting movement, a number of college students still neglect to send in absentee ballots, and others don't vote at all.
Professor of Political Science Kent Portney said that many students do not go the absentee route as a result of systematic flaws.
"Absentee balloting does create a bit of an impediment to college students," he said. "There are always questions about how committed local election officials are to absentee balloting [because] sometimes they are very slow to send out the ballots, and sometimes they have extreme restrictions on their return," Portney said. "And inevitably, the absentee ballot process puts more burden on the student than other forms of voting, and any time you make the cost of doing something higher, you get fewer people doing it."
In 2004, these hurdles were noticeable: Despite high participation rates in the election, young people (ages 18-24), many of whom lived away from home, were still the least active voting group. Their participation rate was 58 percent, compared to 64 percent among all eligible voters.
Many students do not vote absentee because they simply don't get the necessary paperwork completed in time; others complain that it is too difficult and time-consuming to vote.
Junior Shana Hurley, president of the Tufts Democrats and former co-director of Tufts Votes, agreed that many students find the process too confusing. "It isn't difficult to vote absentee, but it's simultaneously very easy to mess it up," she said.
But Hurley said absentee efforts, albeit somewhat difficult, are crucial because many students come from swing states.
"I feel that it's important to encourage students to vote absentee if their home states are more competitive than Massachusetts," she said. "Because of the Electoral College and the liberal demographics in Massachusetts, one's vote makes less of a difference here than in a battleground state ... For students from New Hampshire, Colorado, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Florida, etc., it's much better for them to cast a ballot where it will make more of a difference. It's called choice voting."
Students at Emerson College have attempted to rectify the problems in youth participation by creating a Web-based, nationwide, non-partisan effort to promote absentee ballots. BeAbsentee.org, a site that provides information about absentee voting in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., makes a special effort to target young voters in election-deciding swing states.
"The idea for BeAbsentee came after I did a Google search of ‘Absentee Voting' and discovered that the information was not readily accessible over the Internet, and sometimes not at all," Emerson student Aaron Bacon, the founder and director of BeAbsentee.org, said in a press release. "College students may have every intention to vote, but many don't know they can vote absentee and many more don't know how, so they give up. But it's surprisingly easy once you have the information — request a ballot, complete the ballot and throw it in the mail."
Tufts students have developed their own voting support system to encourage their peers to fill out ballots: Tufts Votes, which is run out of the Tisch College of Citizenship and Public Service, has a Web site designed to help students navigate through the electoral process. It provides absentee voting information, frequently asked questions and a list of voter registration dates and deadlines for each state.
Hurley explained that Internet resources are making absentee voting a simpler process overall.
"It's really important to know your state's own laws and regulations. Fortunately for us, great Web sites like LongDistanceVoter.com and Barack Obama's new voting Web site, VoteforChange.com, have simplified the process a lot," Hurley said.
Other Tufts initiatives include Hillel's attempts to "Rock the Vote." On Sept. 29, Hillel ran a voter registration and absentee ballot drive during which over 100 students signed up to vote absentee. There will be another "Rock the Vote" event today in the Campus Center and in the Carmichael and Dewick-MacPhie Dining Halls.
For some students, this message combines with other considerations to guide them to the post office.
"I'm voting absentee because I'm still on my parents insurance, and therefore I have to keep my legal residency as my hometown in Michigan," sophomore Lydia Mitts, of East Lansing, Mich., said. "Voting absentee is somewhat anti-climactic [because] by doing it, I lose the excitement of voting on Election Day and feeling like I'm participating in some historic event. Still, it's much more important to me to cast my ballot, regardless of what day or where, than to go without voting at all."
