With a big grin and outstretched legs, Secretary of State Bill Bradbury met Wednesday afternoon with students to discuss ideas to increase student voter participation in Oregon.
Bradbury’s appearance was part of a bigger effort to encourage student participation in elections, and while Bradbury has been traveling around the state, visiting both high school and college campuses to encourage young people to vote, the ASUO has launched its own effort.
The issue of student voter apathy has been a pressing matter for Bradbury since he was elected Oregon’s secretary of state last November. The average age of voters in Oregon is between 50 and 60 years old, and only one in 12 voters in the age group of 18 to 35 participates.
“I find that’s just not OK,” he said. “To make our democracy work, it’s absolutely critical that younger people stay in the process and register and vote. It’s just so clear to me that they really care about stuff that is not necessarily cared about by older voters.”
ASUO’s goal for spring term is to register 1,000 additional students voters, but the main focus is for fall term, by which time it hopes to have 5,000 more. This is in conjunction with a statewide goal of getting 27,000 additional students and young people on the voting rolls.
Efforts on campus for spring term are underway, beginning with Bradbury’s visit and continuing with tentative residence hall events, meetings with student programs and information tables.
“We’re going to try and have a very visible campaign,” ASUO State Affairs Coordinator Arlie Adkins said. “A lot of students probably don’t realize that there is a vote coming up in May.”
Interested students from several different organizations, including the ASUO Executive Office, College Democrats and Lane Community College, Oregon Student Association staff members and University administration officials sat in a circle with Bradbury and voiced their ideas for change in students’ voting habits.
One of the most pressing areas to address, the group agreed, is that there are students who are registered to vote, but who decline because either they feel they do not know enough about the issues or that their votes will not make a difference.
Bradbury claimed that student votes can make a difference, and shared a story at the beginning of the meeting to prove it.
In the 1998 Oregon election, in which there was only a 38 percent voter turnout overall, a ballot measure for new parks in Portland failed by a margin of 1,000 votes. That margin could have easily been reversed if younger citizens had voted, Bradbury said, because a poll right after the elections found that 85 percent in the group of 18 to 35-year-olds said they supported new parks in Portland.
Addressing the issue of those who fail to vote because they feel uninformed, several students expressed a desire to simplify the language of the ballot measures and candidate positions.
Bradbury made it clear that the voter’s pamphlet is a manageable thing. The first two pages of each ballot measure are what he called “neutral information,” while the rest of the pages are sections that advocates or opponents have paid to include.
Another problem raised was that students who live off campus are hard to reach. In addition, students who previously have lived on campus, move at year’s end and oftentimes forget they need to re-register to vote.
Possible ways to ease this dilemma arose through the course of the meeting, and included calling students by phone, sending out mailings and conducting student forums.
“We’re going to be out pounding the pavements, talking to the students,” ASUO President Wylie Chen said.