The SGA wants you!
And if you live in the dorms, you've probably heard about it this week as the Student Government Association's "dormstormers" make their way through dorms in a "last final push" toward their goal of registering 1,000 students for the upcoming College Park election.
"I'm going to personally try and hit all of them," said SGA President Andrew Friedson, as he made his way through Denton Hall in a baseball cap, T-shirt and flip-flops Tuesday night.
The "dormstorming" campaign was organized by SGA Director of Governmental Affairs Matt Stern and City Council Liaison Danielle Kogut, Friedson said.
Stern wrote in an e-mail that, as of Tuesday night, SGA had registered 850 students this semester, through the campaign and other means. Seven volunteers signed up 70 students in an hour and a half at Elkton Hall Tuesday night, which Stern said was "consistent with most of our dormstorming efforts - very successful."Neither the mayor's office nor any city district with a large student population is up for grabs this year, and no student candidate has come forward to run. But SGA leaders are undeterred.
"The more students we can get to vote, the better a chance we have of influencing every member of the council on every issue," Friedson said. "Voter turnout increases student political capital."
In the dorms, volunteers point out that the city council controls most off-campus student housing, and has made decisions recently about noise and parking restrictions that they argue have hurt students.
This semester the council passed an ordinance expanding noise restrictions to cover parties playing the bass too loud and introduced permit parking in the area of the Knox Box apartments.
The "dormstorming," however, is fraught with obstacles.
When none of the volunteers are residents at the hall they intend to work in, the group must tailgate their way into the lobby and then into an elevator. Tuesday night's effort was almost thwarted when an Elkton elevator shut its doors, refusing to carry its load, which included a dorm resident, seven SGA volunteers and a Diamondback reporter and photographer accompanying them. (It eventually released the group to take the stairs).
The SGA perseveres with the campaign, though, hoping not only to increase awareness about the election but make it more convenient for students to vote.
The SGA volunteers submit the forms for students they sign up. And once students are registered in College Park, they can vote at the Stamp Student Union in the presidential election as well, rather than having to return home or request an absentee ballot.
"We want to make it easy as possible so they're actually likely to show up," Stern said.
On the ground, the "dormstorming" seems to have mixed results.
"So I just go in and vote, and I'm done," said freshman biology and pre-med major Esther Bediako approvingly as she handed in her completed form.
"I think I'm actually going to vote," said freshman aerospace engineering major Jack Stopak, after Friedson knocked on his door. "I knew about [the election], but I never really thought about it."
However, some students were adamant about voting from their home districts, and others seemed to want only to be rid of the SGA volunteers.
"Uh, yeah, I think I am" registered, said one Elkton student as he ducked into his room.
And having a student fill out a registration form as the SGA looks on may not translate into poll attendance.
"Them actually voting is the second step," Friedson acknowledged, and many students said that even with the series of phone and e-mail reminders they were likely to forget to vote.
Nonetheless, Stern keeps a positive outlook about the SGA's efforts.
"I'm confident that this great response will translate into a great showing at the polls in November's city council election," he said.
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