When it comes to voting, we have things pretty good at this university. Students receive registration forms when they move into the dorms, and the Student Government Association offers to file the forms with the elections board. If you live off the campus, it's still hard to miss the swarms of volunteers offering registration forms on McKeldin Mall, in front of the Stamp Student Union and outside both dining halls.
But these model efforts are far from the standard student voters have come to expect nationwide. Not all universities provide registration forms, and not every college has an active student body. States that require first-time voters to vote in person prevent out-of-state students from filing absentee ballots. In other states, the process to request a ballot is arduous and often requires weeks of back and forth mail correspondence. It'd seem reasonable to let students just register where they go to school, where they live nine months of the year. And yet, over the past month, officials in Virginia, South Carolina and Colorado have taken steps to prevent this, issuing false warnings that switching registration could affect students' scholarship status and insurance.
As Congress deals with these roadblocks to civic engagement, students here need to be the ones taking the lead to show lawmakers why they need to fix them. As students attending the public university situated closest to the Capitol, we should be ambassadors for students at similar schools scattered across the country. And in an election where students are saying they're finally ready to make a difference, ensuring that other students can vote will be just as important as personally going to the polls (especially in a solidly blue state like Maryland).
About a dozen university students realized this Thursday when they appeared at a Congressional hearing on student voting. At the hearing, lawmakers discussed the misinformation scandals, as well as a proposed law that would require federally funded universities to provide students with registration forms. With this university already taking such a step, our student body could provide key testimony on the bill. And lawmakers made it clear the bill, known as the Student Voter Opportunity To Encourage Registration Act of 2008, would only address some of the institutional hurdles student voters face. For instance, some states don't allow citizens to use P.O. Box addresses when registering to vote, which disproportionately affects students living in dorms.
As Chairman Robert Brady (D-Pa.) poignantly noted at Thursday's hearing, studies show that if citizens cannot register and vote on their first try, they're not likely to try again. That is the importance of student voting. We're teaching a generation to participate in government, so that they'll teach the next one. To convince other lawmakers of this, it will require constant pressure from students. Organizations on this campus are already known for lobbying for their specific interests, but making voting more accessible is an issue that transcends political divisions. We hope they'll be up to the task to show it.
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