Campus groups register thousands of new voters.

Byline: Greg Bolt The Register-Guard

E l e c t i o n 2 0 0 6

Campus organizers say they have surpassed their student registration goal by several thousand voters and now are turning their efforts to getting more than 30,000 new youth voters to turn in ballots in next month's general election.

Members of the Student Vote Coalition said they signed up 21,850 student voters before the Oct. 17 deadline, well above their goal of 18,000 registrations.

An affiliated group, Building Votes, reports registering another 11,600 young voters in an off-campus drive.

Courtney Sproule, communications director for the Oregon Student Association, said the combined 33,450 new registrations increases the number of young voters statewide by 10 percent.

She said activists now will turn their attention to encouraging voters to fill out and return their ballots.

"Students are going to be doing everything they can to make sure students know about these issues and are excited about them and then doing follow-up, did-you-turn-in-your-ballot type of work," Sproule said.

Emily McLain, a University of Oregon student and Oregon Student Association board member, said the fall registration drive coupled with another held over the summer produced a combined 6,855 new voter registrations at the UO, beating the goal of 5,000.

She said it's the largest number in a nonpresidential election ever on the campus.

The issue now is whether all the new voters, and all the other students and younger people who signed up in previous registration drives, will actually turn in ballots.

In years past, the overall turnout rate among people in the 18-24 age group has been among the lowest of all groups.

But student leaders say that trend is improving and that the turnout among college students in that age group has been significantly higher than for the group as a whole.

They point to precinct reports that show turnout was as high as 88 percent in student-heavy neighborhoods around the UO.

They also cite a national study by the Center for Information and Research on Civic Learning and Engagement that says students in the last election voted at a higher rate, 77 percent, than the general population, which had a turnout of 42 percent.

From now to Election Day, the OSA, Building Votes and other groups plan to continue to hold nonpartisan information sessions on ballot measures and to distribute a student voters guide, along with other get-out-the-vote activities.

McLain said organizers have been offering short issue briefings on ballot measures at the start of some UO classes when professors have permitted it, and that those programs are continuing.

She and Sproule said all of the materials offered by the organizations are nonpartisan and students are not asked to vote one way or another.

But McLain said she hopes a large turnout by students will show legislators that higher education is an issue they can't afford to ignore.

"Our hope is that politicians will take note of the large number of students who can potentially have a large impact on this election," she said.

"Students are really coming together in a non-partisan way to show that higher education is something that should be at the heart of candidates' political debates right now."