After a year of heavy turnout by college students and other young voters in the presidential primaries, the general election could be decided in part by whether these same young voters show up at the polls on November 4.
Organizers at the nonpartisan activist group Rock the Vote say they’re taking steps now to ensure that when such younger voters do show up, their ballots are counted.
Rock the Vote leaders said today they anticipate several types of problems that could face new and inexperienced voters on November 4, including confusion about the process and their rights, the failure of election officials to list them as eligible, and unusually high turnout causing long lines at polling stations.
To help counter that, Rock the Vote is taking steps that include the creation of a toll-free number, 1-866-OUR-VOTE, where voters will be able to get help and report polling problems. Rock the Vote is establishing the help line in partnership with the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights Under the Law and the Brennan Center for Justice, at New York University’s law school.
The group is also organizing public-service advertisements involving celebrities like Samuel L Jackson, Robert DeNiro, Rosie Perez, and Ashanti to encourage young voter participation.
Stephanie Young, a spokeswoman for Rock the Vote, said her group has already heard of more than a dozen reported instances of voter suppression. They include a county registrar of elections in Virginia’s issuing a statement falsely warning college students that if they registered to vote at school, the students could forfeit scholarships, lose health and car insurance, and adversely affect their parents’ tax status, Ms. Young said.
Other examples cited by Ms. Young include several Democratic presidential campaigns and a Des Moines Register newspaper columnist trying in January to dissuade college students from participating in the Iowa caucuses; flyers posted around the Drexel University campus in Philadelphia warning that undercover police will be monitoring them at the polls on Election Day; a group of 909 Georgia Southern students facing challenges last year to their voter-registration applications due solely to their status as students; and the Maryland Board of Elections sending letters last year to thousands of 17-year-olds telling them they could not vote in the presidential primary even though they would be 18 by the time of the election.
