In the midst of the much-anticipated midterm election that comes to a head on Nov. 2, a smaller but still fierce competition has formed across California university campuses.
The University of California Student Association is hosting contests, presentations and concerts at UCLA throughout September and October to encourage college students to get registered to vote for the upcoming elections.
“We are trying to reach 50,000 students before the election, and so far we have already registered over 5,400 in the first week on the UC campuses alone,” said Rachel Pfeffer, the interim executive director of UCSA.
Students played a large part in the last presidential election, but their involvement in politics cannot end there, she said.
“Students need to have a say in what happens in our state. … They can make a difference and change things they disagree with,” Pfeffer said.
To kick off the year, UCLA participated in the UCSA-sponsored competition to see which University of California and California State University campus could register the most voters by Sept. 21, said Erienne Overli, a third-year political science student and director of StudentVOTE!, an organization that helps make the voter registration process more convenient for students by registering people on campus near their classes.
In the UCSA Voter Registration Contest, UCLA came in second place with a total of 806 people registered, trailing well behind UC Santa Barbara’s registration committee, which brought in 2,300 voters, Overli said.
“(Santa Barbara) has registered the highest number of voters every year for a number of years, due to the institutionalization of voter registration in their dorms,” she said. “Our goal is 3,000 voter registration forms (at UCLA), and we have an exciting number of things planned in order to make that happen.”
The 2010 gubernatorial and congressional elections, which mark the halfway-point in Barack Obama’s presidency, are expected to be especially contentious as all 435 seats in the House of Representatives will be up for election, as well as 34 of the 100 seats in the Senate.
In the weeks before Election Day, students can look forward to classroom presentations, tables along Bruin Walk explaining the elections, dorm activities and a concert on Oct. 15 hosted by Rock the Vote, a non-profit organization which encourages students to vote.
Serena Patel, a second-year business economics student, said she has not registered because it was too inconvenient.
“I will register if it’s brought on campus ““ that’s easy. I think there is so little time for a college student to go out of his or her way to register to vote with school, extracurricular activities and any kind of social life,” Patel said.
In California, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger cannot run again because of his term limit, which has brought Republican candidate and former eBay CEO Meg Whitman and Democratic nominee and current Attorney General Jerry Brown to vie for the governorship.
Even amid this rivalry, voter turnout for people less than 45 years old will be significantly less than it was in the 2008 general election, according to a New York Times/CBS News poll conducted this summer.
UCSA is pushing to make students aware of the issues that may be important to the younger generation, such as legalizing marijuana and increased funding for the public education system, Pfeffer said.
“Students were a big contributor to the outcome of the last election,” she said. “But now it is time for them to get out there and do it again.”