Liberty University, in Lynchburg, Va., is not only jumping on the youth-vote bandwagon in this presidential election, it’s trying to push its way into the driver’s seat.
The chancellor of the conservative Christian college, Jerry Fallwell Jr., is canceling classes on Election Day and providing buses to drive students to the polls, according to a story in The Washington Post. Voter-registration forms are being distributed in the dorms and classrooms to get both in- and out-of-state students signed up before the October 6 deadline for registering for the general election.
The chancellor is the son of the late Rev. Jerry Fallwell, the evangelist who founded Liberty University in 1971 and was a driving force in engaging fundamentalists into American politics.
Democrats are also seeking to energize college students in Virginia, which may be a swing state in this year’s presidential campaign. Barack Obama, the Democratic presidential nominee, sent celebrity actors to campuses in Richmond, Va., and Charlottesville, Va.
Although Virginia has been a reliably Republican state in the past, Democrats have won gubernatorial races in 2000 and 2005, a U.S. Senate seat in 2006 and a majority in the state Senate. —Eric Kelderman
