David BrodyTime is quickly running out for people interested in registering to vote. In Missouri, today is the last day to register to vote in the November presidential election, and registration in many other states closed earlier this week.
To mark today’s deadline, members of Project Democracy will be out in full force around campus all day as part of a last-minute registration push.
Also on campus registering students to vote will be representatives of the liberal group Americans Coming Together (ACT).
Already this year, the two groups have added nearly 2,000 Washington University students to Missouri’s voter rolls. Of those, many are registering to vote for the first time, but others have changed their registration to Missouri from their home state.
Project Democracy’s Teresa Sullivan urged students to consider doing just that, and change their registration to Missouri today.
“Missouri’s a swing state, meaning that your vote matters more here than in another state where the race might already be decided in the presidential election,” she said. “Bringing it down to the local level, you have the ability to influence issues such as the times when bars close; where street lights are; and who is representing your interests as Washington University students in Washington.”
Sullivan and Danielle Christmas, also from Project Democracy, recommended that students who are newly registered in Missouri confirm their status with the appropriate board of elections. For students living east of Skinker, this is the St. Louis City Board of Elections (622-4336); students who live west of Skinker can call the St. Louis County Board of Elections (615-1800).
With about 1,070 Washington University students registered by ACT and another 850 by Project Democracy, students could be a potent political force in the state.
“As for the potential impact, my guess is that a majority of students would vote for Kerry,” said political science professor Andrew Martin, noting that the Bush-Cheney ticket won the state four years ago by a slim margin.
Besides the political reasons for choosing to vote in Missouri, both Sullivan and Martin pointed out a practical reason: it may be easier.
“In Missouri you can walk to your polling place, instead of going through the sometimes difficult and confusing process of requesting an absentee ballot,” said Sullivan.