O-Week sees increase in voter registration

By Charlie Paul     9/9/15 3:13pm

The 2015 Rice Vote Coalition garnered over twice as many registered student voters as last year. Between first-year students and returning advisors, 362 new voters were registered during Orientation Week.

According to University Relations and Welcome Center Assistant Director Mary Lowery, the change is quite visible in the student body.

“I’m actually there on site when we’re doing voter registration,” Lowery said. “We generally have some time to chat with people as they’re coming through, and it was my impression that we had a lot more questions about the differences between voting here on campus and voting in their home state.” 

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Outside of the new students, Lowery also noticed new enthusiasm in the voter liaisons and advisors aiding in registration. 

“I noticed that the liaisons this year were really excited about the process, and I think that really translates to more incoming students registering,” Lowery said.

Martel College junior Neethi Nayak was one of her college’s voter liaisons during O-Week. Nayak said she wanted to take a typically dry topic and present it in an upbeat way to help new students gain political awareness.

“We knew that in order to get new students at our college more excited about the importance of voter registration, we had to take a more creative approach,” Nayak said. “Turns out rapping about civic engagement in the middle of the commons was a great way to do just that!”

The trend of voter enthusiasm has continued outside of registration, as the RVC has been contacted to organize an event with the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business.

Chairman of the College Republicans Sam Herrera attributes expanding voter interest to the upcoming presidential election.

“The political arena is definitely heating up,” Herrera said. “We have a lot of new students that come from different states, and I suppose they’re excited to vote and participate in the election next year.”

According to Herrera, the College Republicans have noted an increase in interest this year. 

“We have 62 members and at the Student Activity Fair last week we gauged around 70 people who expressed interest in joining,” Herrera said. “We have set a goal of going to over 100 and I think that’s totally feasible.”

One of the main roles of the RVC is to aid Harris County in setting up a polling location on campus which is important for increasing voter turnout, according to Herrera.

“I think it’s fantastic; it’s obviously very accessible,” Herrera said. “It’s a Tuesday, people are in class and they don’t have time to go somewhere significantly off campus.” 

Madeleine Tibaldi, vice president of Rice Democrats, said new students’ interest in politics is evident in both club recruitment and voter registration.

“This year our organization received a lot of interest from new students wanting to get involved in politics on campus, and we are thrilled to see this trend mirrored in the spike in voter registration,” Tibaldi, a Jones College senior, said. 

Tibaldi said the organization also hopes for students’ political participation on multiple levels, which is why they are planning a meet-the-candidates panel for the upcoming Houston mayoral elections.

“Perhaps the rhetoric and excitement surrounding the 2016 presidential election is increasing students’ desire to become politically active, but we also hope to see an increase [in] the number of students voting in state and local elections,” Tibaldi said. 

Lowery said registering to vote on time is important for students to keep in mind.

“Registering keeps your options open,” Lowery said. “If something interesting happens in a race between when the deadline closes for registering and the actual race … there’s not a lot you can do.”

 

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