With every passing second, California gets closer to its Sept.
22 voter registration deadline, and student leaders plan to make
good use of every single one of these seconds to get thousands of
students registered ““ before they attend their first
class.
Though the Oct. 7 recall date is still in question due to a
court ruling by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals which
postponed the election, the deadline to register will remain Sept.
22.
Organizers said they will be proceeding as if the election will
occur on Oct. 7, as planned.
With the voter registration deadline coinciding with the move-in
chaos of Welcome Week, student leaders and volunteers strategized
on how to maximize the number of voters they can get
registered.
Organizers said they approached the registration procedure with
a sense of urgency.
“Time is limited; people don’t even know about the
issues, so we needed to come up with an immediate plan of
action,” said Allende Palma/Saracho, internal vice president
of the Undergraduate Students Association Council.
Summer proved to be another obstacle to Palma/Saracho’s
efforts because many of the student leaders were on vacation, and
it was difficult to meet together, he said.
The voting coalition that was formed at the end of summer has a
two-fold plan to reach its goal of registering 10,000 students. The
coalition is officially called UCLA Vote 2003.
The plan will unfold during two jam-packed days.
On Sunday of zero week, the registration volunteers will be
tabling in front of Pauley Pavilion before, after and during the
Welcome Back Concert that is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m.
The second part of the plan involves members of the Office of
Residential Life on the Monday of zero week, said Linda Lam, a USAC
general representative.
Resident assistants and program assistants for all the
residential halls plan to distribute registration forms at their
hall meetings that night.
Coalition members feel it is imperative that a large number of
students register.
“We want students to be registered in L.A. and (the events
that are planned) are good opportunities to find a lot of people in
one place,” said Laurel Turbin, outreach director of Bruin
Democrats.
The organizers’ sense of urgency was increased by the
inclusion of Proposition 54 on the recall ballot.
“Proposition 54 intensifies the importance of the recall.
… It is a misleading proposition and people might think it is a
good thing,” Lam said.
Also termed the Racial Privacy Initiative, the proposition would
ban the state from collecting and maintaining any race-based data.
Proponents believe the implementation of the measure will
contribute to a “colorblind society.”
Many student leaders, however, had planned to educate students
about the dangers of such an initiative throughout the upcoming
year, as it was originally slated to be on the March 2004
ballot.
If the election occurs in October, the same leaders will only
have two weeks to advocate against the proposition.
“Time is our greatest challenge at this point,”
Palma/Saracho said.
Despite the time volunteers are putting in to get students
involved, the question remains if students will put in their time
and vote.
Dominic Tang, a third-year microbiology student, said he does
not plan on voting.
“I don’t really know what’s going on,”
Tang said, adding that he may have voted if he had been at home
during the election.
Still, volunteers are confident they will be successful in
making the student voice heard in the upcoming election.
“(The time restraint) makes us be more creative using
existing events … but I am ready for the challenge,” said
USAC External Vice President Matt Kaczmarek.