The Brown College Democrats, along with the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance, Students for Choice and the League of Pissed Off Voters, have launched "Brown Votes," a non-partisan campus-wide coalition dedicated to getting Brown students to vote in the upcoming presidential election. The coalition has been helping students register to vote and get absentee ballots since the beginning of the semester three weeks ago.
According to Nathaniel Lepp '06, voter registration chair of the Brown Democrats, the coalition is unaffiliated with any national campaigns or political organizations and is interested in registering voters of all political persuasions.
"We've registered about 350 new voters since we've started," Lepp said. He estimates that the coalition has helped over 1,000 students get absentee ballots.
"I was worried about finding some place to register when I came to Providence," said Philip Buffum '08, who registered to vote with the help of a coalition volunteer. "I was hoping there would be something like this on campus. I registered on the first day of orientation."
As part of the effort, volunteers have set up registration tables at the Sharpe Refectory and Verney-Woolley Dining Hall during dinner hours from 5 to 8 p.m., with the intention of expanding to lunch in the upcoming days.
According to Lepp, the coalition is going to be sending out e-mail reminders and information about polling places to students voting in Rhode Island as Election Day approaches. Volunteers will also be placing paper reminders in students' post office boxes and doing other publicity. The coalition has also sponsored a Web site to process requests for personalized attention from student volunteers.
Currently, however, the coalition's primary focus is helping people vote by absentee ballot. Deadlines and requirements for obtaining absentee ballots vary by state, and voters must request absentee ballots from their local boards of elections. To assist voters in this more complicated process, the coalition has set up a system of state captains who have information about absentee voting and deadlines specific to each state.
Melissa Reiss '06, another volunteer with the coalition, estimated that about 40 active student volunteers are helping with the initiative, dividing their time between manning registration tables and serving as state captains. More volunteers have pledged their help but have not yet been used, Lepp added.
After Saturday, which is the Rhode Island deadline for submitting voter registration materials, the coalition will turn to get-out-the-vote efforts, Lepp said. Coalition volunteers will be encouraging students to vote and helping them locate their polling stations.
"We're trying to get people to register here, because the likelihood that you will cast a vote is higher if you register in Rhode Island," Lepp said. But the coalition does encourage students from swing states to vote in their home states so that their votes will have more of an impact, he added.
The coalition is trying to simplify the voting process for students in an effort to increase voter turnout, which has been steadily declining over the past decade among 18- to 24-year-olds.
Coalition volunteers were preparing for this effort in the weeks before school started with the help of Kath Connolly, senior assistant director of the Swearer Center for Public Service. Connolly helped to centralize voter registration initiatives on campus by uniting the efforts of interested groups. "The Swearer Center encourages students to participate in the political process," she said.
The Swearer Center's commitment to supporting voter registration efforts also helps fulfill the University's legal requirements to facilitate student voting. The University must facilitate voter registration according to the Higher Education Act of 1998 and the Help Americans Vote Act of 2002 and provides voter registration cards in the registrar's office.
Despite the University's help, this effort has been student-run, Lepp said, noting that in the future he would like the University to be more involved in systematizing the voter registration. "We're trying to keep it as centralized as possible," he said.
In the days prior to Saturday's registration deadline, coalition volunteers are attempting to coordinate a "dorm storm" with groups of volunteers going door to door in residence halls.
"Before the deadline is up, we want to reach as many Brown students as possible and ask, 'Are you registered?'" Lepp said.
