125 students register for city elections

As deadline nears, SGA increases efforts

Published: Tuesday, September 29, 2009

Updated: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 01:09

Do you need to update your voter registration?

If you intend to vote in the City Council election and have moved – even within campus – since you last registered to vote, you must update your registration to reflect your current College Park address.

To update your voter registration:

Complete by hand and sign a voter registration form. Forms should be available at residence hall service desks or can be downloaded from elections.state.md.us.
Give this form to the Student Government Association to submit for you, or mail it — it cannot be submitted electronically — to this address:
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Alisha Alexander, Election Director
16201 Trade Zone Ave., Suite 108
Upper Marlboro, MD 20774
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Forms cannot be postmarked later than Oct. 5, 2009. Officials also recommend that voters not wait until the last day, warning that as paperwork is hurriedly processed on deadline, workers may make mistakes that lead to difficulties on election day.

To vote:

Election day is Tuesday, Nov. 3, and polls are open from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. Residents of Districts 1 and 4 vote at Davis Hall at 9217 51st Avenue in northern College Park. Residents of Districts 2 and 3 vote at City Hall at 4500 Knox Road downtown. To see a map of the districts and a full listing of which addresses fall into which district, visit collegeparkmd.gov.

A SGA initiative has registered 125 students for November's College Park City Council election with their current local addresses, SGA officials said.

All students who have moved — even from one part of campus to another — since they last registered to vote have until the afternoon of Monday, Oct. 5, to submit change-of-address forms to the Prince George's County Board of Elections if they intend to vote.

Student turnout in city elections is typically poor, but Summer Raza, who is organizing the Student Government Association's voter registration program, said more students should head to the polls.

"There are going to be elections going on. You're part of the city of College Park," Raza said. "[Students] are part of the community, and they should participate ... and obviously if you want to vote you should be registered."

However, even though nearly all students are either registered to vote at home or have moved since last registering, the SGA campaign has so far targeted mostly freshmen and recent transfer students, Raza said. But upperclassmen with out-of-date registration information may face trouble at the polls.

City residents who are registered with a previous address may not be allowed to vote, and could face prosecution if they simply offer election workers an inaccurate address that they know matches their previous registration, according to Jack Robson, chief of the Board of Elections in College Park.

If, for example, you registered to vote in the presidential election last year with a Denton Hall address but now live in La Plata Hall, you must file new paperwork to vote for a College Park mayor and two city council members in your district. Giving your old address to avoid re-registration is technically a criminal offense.

"You're just supposed to tell them where you live," Robson said. "You then sign a card, which from a law perspective is equivalent to stating it under oath."

The SGA distributed voter registration forms to orientation students, left them at residence hall service desks, gave forms to some student groups and went door-to-door in residence halls to register students, said Raza, who hopes to register 200 students by Monday. In 2007, the SGA registered more than a thousand students, but many students were updating their registration in anticipation of the presidential primaries rather than the city council election. Of the thousand-plus registered, Robson estimated only between 25 and 50 students voted in the city election.

While the primary boosted the number of students who registered who had no interest in the city council, it also motivated students to submit registrations with their current addresses.

Raza said the SGA will provide transportation to the city's two polling stations — voters in Districts 2 and 3 use City Hall downtown and those in Districts 1 and 4 vote in Davis Hall farther north — and help students determine which district they are in.

Raza did not offer a specific goal of how many students she hoped would vote in the city council election, saying only she hoped student turnout would improve over the 2007 election. She said the transportation and awareness campaigns would achieve these ends. The SGA had provided a little-used shuttle service at the last council election.

The SGA will not be endorsing candidates in the city's districts, Raza said, saying students should be able to decide for themselves.

One student voter in 2007 had said he arrived to vote in a contested District 2 race after hearing the merits of voting from the SGA, but with no knowledge about the three candidates, he made his two selections based on their alphabetical order on the ballot.

bholt@umdbk.com