Four University students have taken on the task of pushing their fellow students to go to the polls on Tuesday and vote.
Lead by professor Lisa Albrecht, the residential college class is participating in a project that promotes youth voting. They have registered nearly 100 dorm residents to vote and are planning to physically lead students to the polls on Tuesday.
“We are also providing information to all these students about all the candidates and referendums that they will be voting for,” said Mindy Remerowski, a University sophomore involved with the project.
They e-mailed the information to the students who registered to vote through them and also to everyone in the residential college program.
The group’s voting drive is a non-partisan effort to increase the rate of people voting at the University.
Organizers plan to station individuals at dorms on Tuesday to walk students to the polls at the Department of Health.
The group set up tables in Frontier and Centennial Hall to register students.
“A lot of people didn’t know how to register to vote,” said Brian Williams, a University junior involved with the project.
They wanted to go door-to-door, Remerowski said, but they weren’t permitted to do so unless they were representing a specific political party.
Williams said it was frustrating watching Nader volunteers walk right by the group and be able to knock on dorm residents doors. He said the group will try to get the policy changed after the election is over.
“It’s a privacy issue,” said Dan Delaney, director of Centennial Hall.
There is an exception for political campaigns, however. Political candidates and their constituents are allowed by law to campaign in the residence halls, Delaney said.
He also said that the campaigning persons must respect signs on doors requesting that they do not disturb a resident.
The group plans to set up tables in dorms on election day and gather students in the center of the Superblock. They must get permission from hall directors first, Williams said. Otherwise they will ask students to go directly to the center of the Superblock.
Community Advisors and others sometimes try to gather groups to go vote said Williams, but there was no real effort to get this large of a group involved.
“We will also be working on a system that the University can use every year during elections,” Remerowski said.
Some of their main goals are having community advisors inform their students about voting.
Interested students can read about different candidates at http://umn.edu/home/will0954