News Releases

Arizona

At Arizona State University, students will be driving their classmates to the polls with golf carts decorated with red, white and blue bunting.

Contact: Isaac Kimes, ASU Tempe 480-209-6525, isaac.kimes@gmail.com

California

At the Los Angeles Community College system, students ran a historic drive to turnout community college students to vote, making over 22,000 reminders to vote by the end of Tuesday, with 750 students signing up to volunteer in the week before the election.  This was an incredible collaboration of students, faculty and administrators.  At CSU-Long Beach, for example, a Political Science allowed the New Voters Project to train her students on how to mobilize their peers to vote by asking students to sign a pledge to vote card.  After the 5-minute training, the 40+ students spread out around campus and gathered approximately 200 pledge to vote cards in 40 minutes. 

Contact: Danny Katz, 608-215-0929, danny@calpirgstudents.org

Colorado

The “Party at the Polls” hosted by students at the University of Colorado Denver came in handy after a two and a half hour line formed at the polls.  While a DJ entertained the students, CoPIRG, the Board of Regents and the student government helped raise $500 in two hours to buy food for the waiting students.  2.5 hours after the polls were supposed to close, there were still seven students waiting to vote.

At Colorado University Boulder, Doug Vilsak (son of Iowa Governor Tom Vilsak) displayed his family strengths yesterday.  Standing on a table in the student union, Doug shouted until he got the attention of passersby and recruited nearly everyone in the vicinity to get out their cell phones and call five students on the voter list.  Boulder students also ran a 9AM wakeup call phone bank. 

Contact:

Danielle Ziff, UC Denver, 970-389-5813, dziff0513@yahoo.com  

Hannah Polow, UC Boulder, 303-519-4861,

Lindsey Gavioli, UC Denver, 303-803-7609, lindseygavioli@yahoo.com

Connecticut

Turnout skyrocketed at main precinct for the University of Connecticut, from 129 votes in 2002 to 924 votes yesterday.  Students worked hard to increase turnout, securing 2 charter buses, 5 limousines, 3000 Frostee coupons and 2500 t-shirts to help bring students to the polls.  

Contact:
Van McPherson, UConn Storrs, 609-457-9748, van.mcpherson_iii@uconn.edu 

Maryland

At the University of Maryland at College Park, a line snaked outside of the polling booth on campus, with 50 people still in line at 8:45 PM, 45 minutes after the polls were scheduled to close.  Early tallies showed a major increase in student turnout at UMD over 2002, thanks in good part to the registration and Get Out the Vote work of students there.

Contact:
Jamie Rowe, U Maryland, 610-393-3382, jrowe3@umd.edu

Massachusetts

At UMass Dartmouth, student organizers have made a 7-foot high thermometer that will register hourly updates on the number of student ballots cast at the campus polling place.

A record 500 students voted at the new UMass-Amherst polling place.

Jimmy Smith, UMass Dartmouth, 617-888-2154, jsmith1@umassd.edu

Andy MacDonald, 617-290-3026

New Mexico

At the University of New Mexico, students have constructed a giant map of the different polling locations in the area, and using the map to direct students to their proper balloting location.  "It's been steady and great. This is the best we've ever had. I'm really proud. They're our next generation. It's their voice that should be heard now," said Priscilla DeBlassie, poll worker for the University of New Mexico precinct.

Contact:
Katryn Fraher, UNM, 505-550-5985, kfraher@unm.edu

Ohio

Students were undeterred by early efforts to keep students from voting at Ohio State University, where an election night analysis of voter turnout in 14 student-heavy precincts increased by an average of 50% over 2002. 

Contact:
Sara Feldenkris, OSU, 440-476-6413, feldenkris.1@osu.edu   

Anne Evans, OSU, 440-281-2761, evans.881@osu.edu      

Oregon

Coming off the heels of a historic voter registration drive that resulted in 20,000 new registrations, a major coalition of the Oregon Student Association, OSPIRG and the Oregon Bus Project wored at nearly ten colleges and universities around the state to turn students out to the polls. Using data from the Secretary of State, organizers were able to narrow down the list of students who had not yet voted to focus their phone banks in the hours before the close of polls.  Meanwhile, the University of Oregon duck walked around campus exhorting students to vote. 

Contact:
Kit Seulean, Portland State U, 503-317-6638, seulean@pdx.edu

Melissa Unger, Oregon Student Association, ed@orstudents.org, (503) 799-2937

Wisconsin

Students at four University of Wisconsin campuses made 10,000 voter reminders in the week before the election, with over 6,000 reminders made on Election Day alone. On campus, hundreds of students wore red “I Vote” t-shirts, approximately 5,000 students sported “I voted” stickers.  WISPIRG sent 10,000 students a reminder email, while the different university Chancellors sent all-campus emails to students and provided buses to the polls.

Eva Maxwell, U Wisconsin Madison, 608-217-5023, eomaxwell@wisc.edu

Rachel Butler, U Wisconsin Madison, 262-565-8819, ryebutler@gmail.com

David Shaffer, UW Milwaukee, 608-347-8282, david@wispirgstudents.org,

Bethany Parker, UW Oshkosh, 608-345-6590, Bethany@wispirgstudents.org

Dan, Kohler, 608-628-2804, dankohler@wispirg.org