Record number of students register to vote ahead of election

Students at the University of Richmond, like students throughout Virginia, are registering to vote in record numbers for the 2008 presidential election.

Roughly 375 students at the university have registered to vote at various voter registration drives held by university groups, including University of Richmond for Obama and the Bonner Center for Civic Engagement. Students for McCain is holding a drive but does not have a count of students who have registered through the group at this time.

Virginia is a swing state, also known as a purple state, which means the electoral votes for president of the United States could either go to the Democratic nominee, Sen. Barack Obama, or Republican nominee, Sen. John McCain. Virginia is classified as a swing state because during the 2004 presidential election there was an 8 percentage point difference between Sen. John Kerry and President George W. Bush. That percentage point difference makes it mathematically possible for the state to change to a blue, or Democratic, state even though Virginia's electoral college votes have not gone to a Democrat since 1964 when Lydon Johnson was elected president.

Pennsylvania, Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio and a few others have also been dubbed swing states.

In a swing state, votes carry more weight in deciding which candidate a state's electoral votes will go to, said Dan Palazzolo, professor of political science and professor for the Political Campaign House.

The Political Campaign House is one of the programs in Living and Learning started this semester.

A state's electoral college votes will go to the Democratic candidate if it's a blue state or the Republican candidate if it's a red state. In a swing state, the vote could go either way, making every vote important in determining the outcome.

Thirty-six percent of people in Virginia ages 18 to 34 said they would vote for McCain if the election were held that day, as opposed to 60 percent who said they would vote for Obama [according to a SurveyUSA poll from Sept. 14]. But McCain is leading Obama 47.7 percent to 45.4 percent, 2.4 percentage points in Virginia overall, according to a RealClearPolitics poll from Sept. 19.

During the 2004 presidential election, 46 percent of the nation's youth voted for Bush and 54 percent voted for Kerry, a CNN exit poll said. Many people are looking at the youth vote, which usually includes 18- to 29-year-olds, thinking it will affect the outcome of the election.

"I think that in Virginia it could very possibly come down to the youth vote," said junior Darius "Rasheed" Nazeri, coordinator and president of University of Richmond for Obama. "We have the numbers; we just have to turn out the vote."

Virginia has had an increase in Democratic-leaning voters, partially because of an increase in the number of Democrats moving into the state during the last 10 years, Palazzolo said.

But Palazzolo said it would take a coalition of voters to change Virginia from red to blue which would comprise the youth, African Americans and Independents.

"It's pretty hard to do it on the backs of young people alone," Palazzolo said.

Tim Patterson, Republican contributor to The Collegian's 2008 election blog, agreed, saying, "I'm not sure the large number of registrations will make Virginia swing one way or another, but I do think it will give a larger voice to our generation."

UR for Obama collected 270 voter registrations during the first two weeks of its drive and is still collecting around 50 to 70 more from its members who were given forms and told to register people on their own, Nazeri said.

Roughly 25 to 30 percent of those registrations are students who changed their registration from another state or precinct, said sophomore Brian Dunn, director of Massachusetts Students for Obama. Dunn is also on the executive board of UR for Obama.

During its drive, the group found that students were confused about changing their registrations to Virginia. Some thought it would affect their status as residents of their home states. But Nazeri said that students who went to school full-time and had an address in Virginia could register to vote without affecting residency, health care, financial aid or taxes.

The CCE registered 106 voters from Sept. 15 to Sept. 17. Forty of those registrations were new and 66 were change-of-address voter registrations, said Adrienne Piazza, administrative coordinator for the CCE.

Students who do not want to register in Virginia can also go to the CCE to register in their home states and apply to receive absentee ballots, Piazza said.

Registration forms for the 2008 presidential election must be postmarked and sent to the state by Oct. 6.

UR for Obama will continue its voter registration drive until registration forms are due Oct. 6. The group will not always have a table in the Tyler Haynes Commons, but its members will have forms to register students one-on-one, which Nazeri called "freelance" voter registration.

Students for McCain began its voter registration drives last week, said Student for McCain President Pamela Duran.

"Virginia is going to be a pretty key state, and especially in this election, we need to get the youth vote," Duran said. "It is time for the younger people to raise their voices and do something about it."

Both parties are increasing their campaigning in Virginia. Both McCain and Obama have held rallies in the state in the past month.

The candidates and their campaign members need to have personal contact with voters to win the vote, Palazzolo said. Seventy-five percent of voters in the 2004 election were contacted by someone from one of the campaigns.

Students who register do not have to declare a party affiliation, according to Virginia state law. The voter registration drives are required to be non-partisan so the groups holding voter registration drives are not collecting information on which candidate students are planning to vote for.

The Collegian is going through the results of its own political poll of the student body. The results will be released on Oct. 2.

Contact staff writer Stephanie Rice at stephanie.rice@richmond.edu