This was the major question on the University of Oregon’s campus this afternoon as OSPIRG members braved the inclimate weather in a last ditch attempt to register voters before today’s 5:00pm registration deadline. Volunteers set up a table with a full assortment of registration cards as well as a laptop with Internet access pointed to our online voter registration system.
Today’s push caps a 2-week effort by voter registration organizations on campus to engage student voters ahead of Oregon’s May Primary election.
The Oregon Student Association, another student group registering students on campus, has been conducting ‘class raps.’ These raps send OSA volunteers into classrooms to deliver a short presentation to students on how elections may affect them, and then offer them the opportunity to register to vote. Often the classrooms are chosen for their student count and class level to get the greatest impact.
OSA has also been holding special events on campus. The Floats and Votes event offered students Rootbeer floats and then gave them the chance to get regsitered,
OSA tells me that along with the ASUO, they have registered nearly 700 students ahead of today’s deadline.
Groups on campus have found the new online voter registration tool useful, especially since they can promote voter registration easily over social networking sites like Facebook. One volunteer told me, “Before, we sent emails out to our member list reminding them to get registered. Now, we can post a direct link to the online voter registration system on Facebook. Then our members can post the link as well and it gets out to way more people.”
The good news/bad news from today’s push was that only a handful of students registered to vote in front of the EMU; 95% of them were already registered.
Are you registered to vote? You can check here.
If not, you can get registered NOW and it’s easy. Just head over to our Online Voter Registration system and take care of it.
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